Healthcare Hope

Just when I thought any meaningful healthcare reform was dying in the Senate, the Gang of Ten (as opposed to the Gang of Six, the Gang of Fourteen, and the original Gang of Four, but not to be confused with the energy Gang of Ten) appears to have come up with a plan that might just work. The bad news is that the public option is gone. But that's not really so bad because any teeth the public plan may have had have been negotiated out of it. In return for dropping the plan, it appears that people over 55 (like me) could buy into Medicare, the eligibility for Medicaid might go up to 150% of the poverty line, and the insurance exchanges would offer a version of a healthcare plan offered to members of Congress.

Expanding Medicare coverage would offer some real hope of cost control, and apparently people could buy in as early as next June. That provision alone would make more of a difference to more people than anything I've seen so far.

Maybe there is some hope after all.

Just a few thoughts...

Wouldn't it be something if Barack Obama went to Oslo and didn't accept the Peace Prize? He could give a great speech about how he doesn't deserve it yet, but hopes to one day. Then he could go on to Copenhagen and put the weight of the United States behind a comprehensive global warming accord.

After he got back home, he could reverse course in Afghanistan and bring the troops home. To help Afghanistan stabilize, he would offer to buy all the opium that Afghani farmers could produce at "fair trade" prices. The opium could be used for pharmaceuticals, and if there's some left over, it could be destroyed. That would be a lot cheaper than having 100,000 troops over there, and the warlords would lose a lot of their power and financing.

Then he could accelerate the pullout of troops from Iraq. There would certainly be a mess in the vacuum that's left, but would it really be all that much worse than what's happening there now? Whatever came out of the vacuum would be more stable and viable than anything an American occupation can produce.

He'd still have lots left on his plate, what with Iran, Israel, US healthcare, saving the world economy, etc., etc., but he could go back to Oslo next year and get that Peace Prize that he would so richly deserve.

I can dream, can't I?

Morning Mental Health Break

Afghanistan Costs

Here are some interesting stats on the cost of the adventures in Afghanistan. Particularly interesting is the highlighted fact that in 2010 the US will spend more in Afghanistan than any other country in the world (except China) spends on their total individual defense budgets! As in healthcare, the US doesn't seem to get much bang for its buck. Or maybe that's all they get in this case - a bunch of big bangs as the money goes up in smoke.

Putting Afghanistan Troop Increase Costs in Perspective

Travis | Dec 02, 2009 | 0

Here's a little number crunching on the Afghanistan troop increase. For additional budgetary analysis, see Chris Hellman at NPP and Todd Harrison at CSBA.

Cost of Increase (Updated 1PM)

Adding 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan will cost $30 billion during Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 (12/1 speech).

This $30 billion comes in addition to the previously requested FY 2010 defense budget of $68 billion for Afghanistan, $62 billion for Iraq, $534 billion for DOD’s “base” budget, and $22 billion for nuclear weapons and miscellaneous defense needs.

Altogether, the troop increase in Afghanistan will push total U.S. defense spending in FY 2010 to approximately $716 billion.

Fiscal Year 2010 Funding Levels

Estimated DOD war funding now required for FY 2010:
Iraq = $62 billion
Afghanistan = $98 billion
Total = $160 billion (CRS)

Putting Costs in Perspective
References are to fiscal years

In 2010 alone, U.S. military spending on Afghanistan will equal nearly one-half of total spending on the war since 2001.

The United States will spend 92 percent more on military operations in Afghanistan during 2010 than it did during 2009.

In 2010, the troop increase in Afghanistan will cost each individual American taxpayer $195 dollars. (IRS)

In 2010, the troop increase in Afghanistan will cost $2.5 billion per month, $82 million per day, $3.4 million per hour, $57,000 per minute, and $951 per second.

In the time it takes you to read this post, the troop increase in Afghanistan will have cost $85,500.

In 2010, the United States will spend more on Afghanistan than every other country in the world spends on defense individually, with the exception of China. Of course, total U.S. defense spending in 2010, at over $700 billion, will be roughly five times greater than China’s total military budget.

With the additional $30 billion to be spent in Afghanistan during 2010, the United States could:

• Double the amount spent on nuclear nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, and demining ($1.6 billion)
• Double U.S. support of migrants and refugees throughout the world ($3 billion)
• Quadruple the Civilian Stabilization fund for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq ($1.5 billion)
• Triple federal funding for renewable energy research and development ($7.4 billion)
• Double overall contributions to international institutions like the WHO and IAEA ($2.1 billion)
• Double federal funding for DHS First Responder and CDC Disease Prevention programs ($4.2 billion)
• Strengthen capacity of Coast Guard to close off the far-more-likely route of nuclear weapons coming into the United States – through ports ($6 billion) (USB 2010 report)

Obama's Speech, Reaction Part II

Obama is a really smart guy - certainly the most intelligent president of my lifetime. So what's he up to? He must know that he'll never get the support of the right, and he's losing the support of the middle and the left. He must also know that trying to pacify or civilize Afghanistan is a fool's errand.

He did a masterstroke by putting the war in the budget process. That will put the Republicans in the awkward position of having to vote for his plans, because the Democrats alone won't do it. If nothing else, that will embarrass the Republicans into giving a veneer of bipartisanship to his war policies. He also knows that his supporters have nowhere else to go. What are they going to do, vote for Palin in 2012?

But in the end, he'll still be spending billions and wasting American lives on a hopeless venture that does nothing to make America "safer."

So what's he up to? Maybe he's cut a deal with Pakistan to somehow hunt down Osama bin Laden in the border areas or allow the CIA to hunt him down in return for some favors regarding Kashmir and India. Or maybe it's just plain old-fashioned cash. But wouldn't that be the surprise of the century if Obama bagged Osama? Obama could then pull out all the troops with his head held high. His base would again support him, and the right would be crushed.

Truly a "Mission Accomplished" moment.

Obama's Speech

I watched Obama's speech about Afghanistan tonight with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I don't know what he's trying to achieve and how "victory" will be defined. After a litany of how we got into the mess in the first place, he laid out his plan to defeat the Taliban so that they can't invite Al Quaeda back in and give them a safe haven. Exactly how Afghanistan differs from other terrorist-harboring failed states like Somalia or Yemen or parts of the Philipines or Indonesia, he doesn't say. And we have to keep fighting them so that the Pakistanis, who have their own Taliban/Al Queda problem will keep fighting them in the border areas. He going to do this by providing security and training Afghan soldiers and police so that they can do the job when we leave. The number of 400,000 Afghan security forces has been thrown around before, but I've never heard how the country can possibly support them. Last year Afghanistan had an estimated GDP of about $22B. At $5000 to equip, house, and maintain each soldier or policeman, their entire GDP would soon be gone. So I guess that even if we're successful, we'll be supporting Afghanistan financially forever.

The one bright spot in the speech was his promise of financial transparency. If the war is on the budget, and Congress has to debate and vote on the expenditures necessary to maintain it, it could make the Congress responsible for at least some of the coming debacle.

I don't know who was the intended audience for this speech. If you watched the speech, you could see that the young cadets were polite and more or less engaged, but the military brass looked positively pained by it all. The right will mock and block whatever he does; the left is leaving him in droves (MoveOn.org today announced their opposition to the Afghan surge); and the vast middle is just sick and tired of it all. I can't think of any block of people whose confidence he's gained.

He certainly has lost mine.

Canada, a kinder gentler nation?

If, like me, you thought that Canada is a kinder gentler nation, watch this video. I'm not so sure anymore. Amy Goodman is not a whacko or a terrorist. She is a long-time progressive writer, broadcaster and journalist. She's prominent on the left, but doesn't get much airtime on the MSM. For some reason, the Canadian border guards detained her at the Peace Arch Crossing as she was traveling from Seattle to Vancouver.

I always thought I could run back to Canada when the US becomes a police state, but I'm not so sure anymore.