Buying cool new shoes with a credit card may not be all that wise, especially if you don't pay the card off every month, but at least you have the shoes while you are paying them off. Tomahawk missiles are different.The Navy stocks up on missiles over time, paying for them out of current budget. This means that a president can use Tomahawks without any impact on current spending. Replacing the inventory will be done over time, maybe even by a later administration. Sending troops, on the other hand, is like buying shoes with a credit card. By the time you have to pay the bill you already know whether buying the shoes was a good idea or not, but you have to pay even if the shoes don't fit.
The intervention in Libya takes advantage of these economic facts of life. The submarines with Tomahawks are already loitering around the Mediterranean. The missiles were paid for by one of the presidents Bush, or maybe even Reagan.Firing off 122 of the missiles has no current financial impact.
Guarding a no-fly zone does cost current dollars. The fuel and additional spare parts required by an increase in flight time come out of the current budget. Most costly of all, in current budget terms, is sending ground troops. US troops in Afghanistan cost about $1 million each per year.
Ezra Klein suggests that pay-as-you-go war would be better. If I want to fire a missile, I must first add revenue or cut some other expense to pay for it. This sounds reasonable to me. Lots of planning had to go into firing those Tomahawks at Libya. There's no reason that White House staff couldn't also be identifying the new revenue sources or cuts necessary to pay for them at the same time. To make it more true to life a president sending troops into harm's way should also budget the death benefits and medical care necessary for those who are injured and pay that amount out of current income. The military plans ahead to preposition body bags, so prepositioning the money necessary to fill them shouldn't be too difficult.
What military operation could survive having to do a cost-benefit analysis prior to engaging in it? Who would have thought that invading Afghanistan and then Iraq was a good idea if they had to pay for it up front? The National Priorities Project estimates the cost of wars since 2001 at $1.171 trillion. There are about 311 million Americans. That mans each American has paid something like $376 per year for the last ten years just for those wars. The Tax Policy Center says 47% pay no income tax, so double the amount if you are someone who does pay. This means the bill for a tax paying family of four has been $3,008 a year for the last ten years just for these wars.
Pay as you go wars would be a good way to help presidents think before they launch.
The intervention in Libya takes advantage of these economic facts of life. The submarines with Tomahawks are already loitering around the Mediterranean. The missiles were paid for by one of the presidents Bush, or maybe even Reagan.Firing off 122 of the missiles has no current financial impact.
Guarding a no-fly zone does cost current dollars. The fuel and additional spare parts required by an increase in flight time come out of the current budget. Most costly of all, in current budget terms, is sending ground troops. US troops in Afghanistan cost about $1 million each per year.
Ezra Klein suggests that pay-as-you-go war would be better. If I want to fire a missile, I must first add revenue or cut some other expense to pay for it. This sounds reasonable to me. Lots of planning had to go into firing those Tomahawks at Libya. There's no reason that White House staff couldn't also be identifying the new revenue sources or cuts necessary to pay for them at the same time. To make it more true to life a president sending troops into harm's way should also budget the death benefits and medical care necessary for those who are injured and pay that amount out of current income. The military plans ahead to preposition body bags, so prepositioning the money necessary to fill them shouldn't be too difficult.
What military operation could survive having to do a cost-benefit analysis prior to engaging in it? Who would have thought that invading Afghanistan and then Iraq was a good idea if they had to pay for it up front? The National Priorities Project estimates the cost of wars since 2001 at $1.171 trillion. There are about 311 million Americans. That mans each American has paid something like $376 per year for the last ten years just for those wars. The Tax Policy Center says 47% pay no income tax, so double the amount if you are someone who does pay. This means the bill for a tax paying family of four has been $3,008 a year for the last ten years just for these wars.
Pay as you go wars would be a good way to help presidents think before they launch.
