Support Our Troops — It's Not Just a Slogan

Eric Umansky of .:Slate:. details the support we're giving our troops, in Iraq and Afghanistan, by way of armored humvees that transport troops and patrol war-torn streets. To sum it up in two words: not enough.

This war-profiteering administration is following its established pattern of underfunding matters of importance, in this case a matter of life and death. The White House claims it doesn't need the $50 billion budgeted for war operations now, even though Congress was presented with a document showing the "military has an existing $323 million shortfall" for retrofitting the humvees already being used by the troops. To produce humvees with armor would significantly increase the amount of the shortfall.

While the troops are fighting for their lives with insufficient equipment, the dull-eyed, flag-waving warhawks at home continue to stike a macho pose and mutter meaningless slogans about supporting our troops.

No New Taxes

Cheap labor conservatives are pushing hard to make the tax cuts .:permanent:., and their supporters are unable to understand that less revenue flowing into government coffers means less money to fully fund the war effort. What we're doing is borrowing against the future to fund our expenditures today. Not only does that increase the national deficit, but it burdens our progeny with the bill. (See MoveOn.org .:ad:. for an illustration.)

Actually .:Grover Norquist:., a key adviser in Smirky's administration has said, "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." That's the type of fiscal responsibility we can expect from the prodigious fabricators of the GOP.