The Washington Post Wants Your Social Security to Pay for the War

Friday 01 October 2010
by: Robert Naiman,
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

For The Washington Post, there's no such thing as a war that America can't afford.

In an editorial Wednesday, The Washington Post takes President Obama to task for being concerned about the cost of the war in Afghanistan and the fact that it conflicts with domestic priorities. That The Washington Post, a knee-jerk supporter of war for empire, would slam President Obama for this is the opposite of surprising. Nonetheless, what The Washington Post actually said in its editorial is still breathtaking:

Mr. Obama repeatedly cites the cost of the war and the need to shift resources to domestic priorities - though spending on Afghanistan is well below 1 percent of US gross domestic product.

We have been led to believe that official Washington is seized with urgency about long-term projections of US budget deficits. Yet, here is The Washington Post, downplaying the cost of the war in Afghanistan on the grounds that it is "well below 1 percent" of US gross domestic product (GDP).

Logically, there are two possibilities.

One possibility is that The Washington Post is saying that, in the future, we can ignore any government expenditure or savings that amounts to less than 1 percent of US GDP as being too small to bother about.

(More here.)