Concerns about the economy recently overtook Iraq as the issue that most concerns Americans. At first glance, one traditional Republican strength - national defense - has ceded its place to another Republican strength - a jittery economy. Taken together, however, the primacy of these two issues in the minds of voters makes for one huge Democratic talking point: The Iraq Recession.
There is no question that the war in Iraq - which eats up over $275 million per day - is intimately linked to our economic downturn. As early as September of 2002, leading economists were predicting that a prolonged or "serious" conflict in Iraq would hurt the world economy:
"A war against Iraq could cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, play havoc with an already depressed domestic economy and tip the world into recession because of the adverse effect on oil prices, inflation and interest rates, an academic study [by William Nordhaus, Sterling professor of economics at Yale University] has warned." [Independent, 11/16/02]
We need deep changes, not bandaids. And a majority of Americans agree on at least a few changes: we can leave Iraq. We can stop the irresponsible government borrowing. We can reduce military aid to dictators like Musharraf. We can end undeserved corporate welfare and no-bid contracts for work that doesn't get done.
Take John McCain's appearance on Meet the Press this morning. After talking about how well the surge was "working" and telling Tim Russert that, "We have to succeed there. It's long, hard and tough," McCain proceeded to talk about his economic record:
And let me go back to 2001 again. I was right, we had to have restraint of spending. I'm proud to have been one in the Reagan revolution where we not only cut taxes, which I'm proud to have supported and I have a record of it, but we restrained spending. And when you have tax cuts and not restrain spending and let things go completely out of control, as we did, look, we lost the 2006 election because we didn't restrain spending. So I not only didn't--had a different set of tax cut proposals, which were very strong, but I also had restraint of spending.
The Iraq Recession, in light of the fundamental illegality and immorality of the Iraq War, makes a mockery of any war hawk/fiscal conservative. The two positions are inherently incompatible, and as such, the Republican party's two greatest "strengths" - national defense and the economy - have been turned into their two greatest weaknesses.
More Democratic candidates need to pick up on this Iraq Recession idea. Moveon is already on the case. The concept of a war boom and bust is well understood. This is an opportunity to take the fight to Republicans on their home turf and win.
It's not hard for Americans to understand that the Iraq war is bleeding our economy dry, and that their two worst fears are actually intimately linked. Once that message has gotten through, the choice in 2008 will be clear.
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