Iraq and the Economy

I think Barack Obama's speech on Iraq and the economy was just okay, which for Obama is pretty bad. As Chris Bowers says, it was redolent with a kind of narrow-minded transactionalism that kind of misses the point:

The broader point that needs to me made is not that Iraq specifically has prevented money from being funneled directly to your specific demographic group, but that excessive military spending in places like Iraq drains massive amounts of money from our nation as a whole. The Iraq war is our major national project right now, equivalent to the Apollo program or the New Deal. Do we want that as our national project? I don't think many Americans would agree. Do we want a series of transactions to specific demographic groups and issues to be our national project? Even if is vastly preferable to making the Iraq war our national project, the truth is that isn't very appealing either. We need a different framing around what we want our national project to be, and we need a Democratic leader who is willing to make that case to the country as a whole.

I think that's right. Democrats are going to want to be featuring Iraq/economy linkages as we head toward November and the right way to do this is isn't in terms of eleventeen different micro-initiatives that could have been paid for with Iraq-style levels of money. The point to make is that we could be making our "big project" some kind of productive investment in the future of our country -- something that would provide jobs, yes, but also pay off over the long run.

Comments

"We can rebuild our cities, or we can rebuild their cities," you mean? You have to read out the security issue first, which former liberal hawks will fight you on.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 21, 2008 11:33 AM

Right on! For the past 25 years Democrats have been saying "For the price of one aircraft carrier we could have built 25 schools" and it's never helped them win an election. The Democratic base (to a very large extent, government workers) loves this kind of talk but the general public is never impressed. Someday (I know this is wacky) some Democrat might suggest that by cutting defense spending we could actually cut government spending and even cut taxes. Someday Democrats might notice that cutting taxes is popular with the electorate (though not, of course, with the Democratic base).

Posted by Alan Vanneman | March 21, 2008 11:39 AM

I disagree, for two reasons. First, this war would be a lot more unpopular if people understood their personal stake in it. In the Vietnam era, that personal stake was the possibility of being drafted. Now, people can afford to compartmentalize the war as "over there", having no effect on their own lives if they (or their friends/family members) are not enlisted - unless the point can be made that our financial commitment in Iraq takes away specifically from projects that would improve their everyday lives here at home.

Second, on a more general level, Obama has been criticized for speaking in generalities and not highlighting specific domestic policy positions or projects. Is that not what he does here?

Posted by Ready for change | March 21, 2008 11:41 AM

Perhaps our "big project" should be a return to fiscal responsibility. Yeah, it's pretty boring, but it may be more important to our well being than anything else. We can't keep going further into debt forever.

Posted by fostert | March 21, 2008 11:42 AM

So, the Prospect article you wrote a couple years ago detailing the myriad projects that could have been funded with Iraq money was silly waste of time?

Could you have told me that before I started reading it?

Posted by PTS | March 21, 2008 11:48 AM

What if we had invested the $1 Trillion we pissed away in Iraq into alternative energy sources --advanced nuclear plants to fuel electric cars,etc?

That INVESTMENT in advanced technology would have repaid us with higher living standards and savings for the next 100 years.

Whereas George Bush/Dick Cheney's military imperialism is grossly wasteful CONSUMPTION requiring huge sums to money to be spent every year just to slow down the decay in the status quo.

Even George Bush acknowledged recently that "our" energy policy "has not been very wise".

Posted by Don Williams | March 21, 2008 11:51 AM

I keep hearing how much our government is spending on the war in Iraq. How much of that money is, actually, being spent in the United States?

Posted by Stewart | March 21, 2008 11:51 AM

I keep hearing how much our government is spending on the war in Iraq. How much of that money is, actually, being spent in the United States?

Posted by Stewart | March 21, 2008 11:51 AM

I agree that the links he made will probably leave him open to criticism. "You'd rather have the terrorists eat your Muslim daughters in their brand new school than defeat them?"

The big national project should be green energy.

Posted by socctty | March 21, 2008 11:51 AM

The point to make is that we could be making our "big project" some kind of productive investment in the future of our country...

I really hope you weren't thinking of Mars when you wrote that.

Posted by Jim W | March 21, 2008 11:52 AM

It makes no sense to funnel the money spent in Iraq into social programs, because it's not our money.

Posted by Tony Hussein | March 21, 2008 11:56 AM

As a Senator, he knows that much of the money being spent on the Iraqi war is being spent in the United States. However, it is not in his political best interest to discuss this.

Posted by Stewart | March 21, 2008 12:01 PM

One of the projects of national purpose Bowers suggests is to "secure freedom around the world, because at least that is a national project that sounds worthwhile." I'm sorry, but isn't that exactly what Bush, McCain, and other neocon dreamers have used as a "justification" for invading Iraq, saber-rattling Iran, etc.?

Vague promises of moving from one large national project (Iraq) to another large national project is not, in my opinion, a particularly effective strategy, especially since Obama has already been criticized for being too vague in his themes of hope and change. People are more likely to relate to local priorities that have an impact on their everyday lives and that could have been better funded if not for our enormous spending in Iraq.

Posted by Ready for change | March 21, 2008 12:02 PM

There is some inherent truth to the argument here. I like to frame it in the context of return on investment. For the forseeable future, the ROI of the Iraq was is 0. For 1 trillion dollars, do you think that we might have installed a solar panel on the rooftops of homes and buildings across the country? Say at a cost of 50,000 a piece that is 20,000,000 homes and businesses that have a reduced energy bill and more disposable income for consumers, profit margin for businesses. Even if these solar cells have a lifespan of only 10 years, there is an ROI > 0 here, which makes it an infinitely better allocation of resources than the Iraq war.

Posted by freddiemac | March 21, 2008 12:02 PM

Matt - I think you're way off here. 71% of the population thinks that the Iraq war is harming the US economy, pointing out the transactional benefits is going to hit a lot of independent voters in a pretty visceral way this time.

The reason why the aircraft carrier/school tradeoff doesn't work is because it's pretty hard for uninformed people to judge whether or not it's important for the US to have more aircraft carriers - it's not that hard of an argument to support at a high-level.

When a huge majority of the population has already concluded (definitively so) that the war isn't worth the cost, the most effective way to hammer the point home is to keep pointing out to people the transactional costs in a way that resonates with them.

If you focus on big picture/national project initiatives, you give McCain a chance to argue that the Iraq/Iran wars are appropriate national projects - you give him an opening to neutralize resentment over crumbling local and national infrastructure.

Posted by BFR | March 21, 2008 12:13 PM

Matt - I think you're way off here. 71% of the population thinks that the Iraq war is harming the US economy, pointing out the transactional benefits is going to hit a lot of independent voters in a pretty visceral way this time.

The reason why the aircraft carrier/school tradeoff doesn't work is because it's pretty hard for uninformed people to judge whether or not it's important for the US to have more aircraft carriers - it's not that hard of an argument to support at a high-level.

When a huge majority of the population has already concluded (definitively so) that the war isn't worth the cost, the most effective way to hammer the point home is to keep pointing out to people the transactional costs in a way that resonates with them.

If you focus on big picture/national project initiatives, you give McCain a chance to argue that the Iraq/Iran wars are appropriate national projects - you give him an opening to neutralize resentment over crumbling local and national infrastructure.

Posted by BFR | March 21, 2008 12:16 PM

Not that wikipedia should be given much credence but the article there on hydrogen costs estimates that $3 trillion would be needed to completely retool the US electric grid to be fed by hydrogen extracted from wind energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Costs

Not accounted for is the cost of switching any significant number of vehicles over to all electric or hybrid.

To put that $3 trillion national power grid in perspective the current administration ballooned the national debt by $4.7 trillion.

There is your opportunity cost. Freedom from oil-rich dictatorship would have been cheaper than undermining our position in the world by $1.7 trillion.

I suspect an extremely small part of that remaining $1.7 trillion in debt could have been used to incent individuals and companies to buy electric vehicles.

Posted by Observer | March 21, 2008 12:22 PM

Oh posh Matt. What a pedantic criticism. I thought Obama's speech framed matters perfectly, and was admirably direct and concise.

He did mention his big public investment projects: the infrastructure rebuilding fund, and the renewable energy investment program. But what is essential now is that Obama just continue to emphasize the costs of the war in concrete terms everyone can understand, and get voters to think about Iraq as an economic issue, not just a flag, country and security issue. He should bang away at that from now until November.

The most important reason for going through the list of opportunity costs is to give ordinary voters - the ones who are not accountants or government wonks and don't follow budget debates closely - some toehold on a concrete understanding of just how much the war costs. A lot of people hear that the war "costs X ... illions of dollars". But the numbers mean nothing to them. You have to translate those numbers into things that people understand. If you're a resident of a city which has just voted to rebuild a major bridge, for example, at great cost to the city and your tax bottom line, then you have a rough idea of how much it costs to rebuild all the nation's crumbling roads and bridges. And if you then learn that that latter project would only cost 6% of what Iraq costs, you have a more concrete notion of what a gargantuan waste of resources Iraq has been.

I also don't understand why the idea of trading in an Iraq War money pit for eight or nine much needed, but individually less costly, national spending projects is a case of "narrow-minded transactionalism", but trading it in for one massive Apollo-like mega-project which shall be designated "Our National Project" is not a case of narrow-minded transactionalism. What is it? Broad-minded and lofty transactionalism?

Posted by Dan Kervick | March 21, 2008 12:33 PM

If you're a resident of a city which has just voted to rebuild a major bridge, for example, at great cost to the city and your tax bottom line, then you have a rough idea of how much it costs to rebuild all the nation's crumbling roads and bridges.

Case in point - the greater Puget Sound region has at least two bridges that are candidates to collapse in an earthquake - both of which would result in catastrophic loss of life. You talk about infrastructure up here, people are going to know exactly what you're talking about and why it matters.

McCain has of course no chance of winning WA but this can't be unique. Talk to the costs of stalled local issues - border security in AZ/CA for example.

Talk about trips to Mars or hydrogen economies or universal health care and people's eyes are going to glaze over. Talk about the bridge they cross every day falling into the water and they'll sit up and notice.

Posted by BFR | March 21, 2008 12:44 PM

the war in iraq is tearing familys apart. politics and goverment does not understand how to deal with the possition they are in they think what they are doing is the right way but i dont think any way is right, right now all we can do is either sit, get killed or the easiest way is to bring our troops back and then when they think there in the clear to ambush america go over there an bobm them. i may sound wrong bout think about it everyone just think ab out it.

Posted by katie bailey | March 21, 2008 12:50 PM

the war in iraq is tearing familys apart. politics and goverment does not understand how to deal with the possition they are in they think what they are doing is the right way but i dont think any way is right, right now all we can do is either sit, get killed or the easiest way is to bring our troops back and then when they think there in the clear to ambush america go over there an bobm them. i may sound wrong bout think about it everyone just think ab out it.

Posted by katie bailey | March 21, 2008 12:51 PM

the war in iraq is tearing familys apart. politics and goverment does not understand how to deal with the possition they are in they think what they are doing is the right way but i dont think any way is right, right now all we can do is either sit, get killed or the easiest way is to bring our troops back and then when they think there in the clear to ambush america go over there an bobm them. i may sound wrong bout think about it everyone just think ab out it.

Posted by katie bailey | March 21, 2008 12:51 PM

the war in iraq is tearing familys apart. politics and goverment does not understand how to deal with the possition they are in they think what they are doing is the right way but i dont think any way is right, right now all we can do is either sit, get killed or the easiest way is to bring our troops back and then when they think there in the clear to ambush america go over there an bobm them. i may sound wrong bout think about it everyone just think ab out it.

Posted by katie bailey | March 21, 2008 12:51 PM

the war in iraq is tearing familys apart. politics and goverment does not understand how to deal with the possition they are in they think what they are doing is the right way but i dont think any way is right, right now all we can do is either sit, get killed or the easiest way is to bring our troops back and then when they think there in the clear to ambush america go over there an bobm them. i may sound wrong bout think about it everyone just think ab out it.

Posted by katie bailey | March 21, 2008 12:51 PM

the war in iraq is tearing familys apart. politics and goverment does not understand how to deal with the possition they are in they think what they are doing is the right way but i dont think any way is right, right now all we can do is either sit, get killed or the easiest way is to bring our troops back and then when they think there in the clear to ambush america go over there an bobm them. i may sound wrong bout think about it everyone just think ab out it.

Posted by katie bailey | March 21, 2008 12:51 PM

I didn't agree with you at first, but I started to turn around post 4, and was convinced by the end of post 5.

Posted by Monster | March 21, 2008 12:58 PM

I didn't agree with you at first, but I started to turn around post 4, and was convinced by the end of post 5.

The site (not to mention that post) seems a little glitchy today...

Posted by BFR | March 21, 2008 1:00 PM

It looks from this speech and the first PA ad that Obama has decided to go less subtle. He's being pretty much forced on that path, but I also think it's particularly good to so on the economy. One of the underlying anxieties about the Iraq-economy connection is that, quite frankly, while we are as overextended as we were in Vietnam, we are no longer in the position we were then economically. The US's place in the world economy is great, but its comparative size smaller. The dollar trajectory suggests that foreigners have other options, and that contributes to people's feeling of loss of control.

I generally think there is little to be gained by campaigning with great subtlety on economic subjects. Obama did well by not trying to dazzle the Yglesientes (among which I humbly count self), and going for hard hits insteads.

Posted by pierluigi | March 21, 2008 1:35 PM

I don't think it takes a rocket scientist - even noting that the average American is an utter moron - to note that slashing ten percent off the cost of the military-industrial complex and devoting it to say, nanotech energy research a la Professor Smalley's ideas is exactly going to doom America to the Muslim hordes.

I think the average US chimp could figure out that the war in Iraq is not worth rolling blackouts in the US and $4/gallon gas.

Again, for the multi-posters, hit the Post button ONCE! Then go away! Your post got there! It's just that the idiots who run the IT department at The Atlantic don't know how to refresh a Web page in less than three minutes...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 21, 2008 8:35 PM