Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Obama plans to cut wasteful spending, starting an unnecessary war

 
President Obama’s recent decisions have sparked controversy around the world.

He believes that we should continue to cut wasteful spending. However, after a few weeks after making that statement, he decided to intervene in Libya, to prevent a slaughter of civilians that would forever haunt everyone and if we did not intervene, we would “betray who we are.”
But is that who we are? After trying day after day to successfully pull out of the two wars we are already involved in, President Obama decided to create his own; one that was not necessary in the least bit for the United States. What will the taxpayers have to pay this time? How responsible should we be held? How much will our intervention cost?  

We need to be unified as a country and we cannot use our military as a solution to the world’s problems. There will naturally be conflict and I do not think that President Obama had the right to decide to bomb Libya so quickly, without much discussion to the American public or Congress. His constant response is that it was the U.S’s moral obligation and responsibility.

In fact, there had been little to no discussion about it. He did not consult Congress prior to his actions. In 2007, Obama was asked in an interview if the president would have the authority to bomb [Iran] without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress, and his response was “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Then what happened?

He also has no plan to ask Congress to fund his war. Yes, it is technically legal and he can do as he pleases, but the country does not need any more debt. The United States is a democratic country, not an oligarchy to the world.

In a recent speech at the National Defense University, he calls himself the “commander-in-chief” and not just President. Had we been in a better position economically, his decision could have been rationalized, but still needed to be thought out.

He sees everything as a competition for America. Sure, it would be great if we were number one in everything, but the truth is that we fell behind and we need to get back on track. He needs to better our economy because he wants to, not solely to up our status as a country. We can’t plan the future without fixing the present.

Obama came in to office two years ago, with an annual deficit of $1.3 trillion and a projected deficit of more than $8 trillion. It costs $40,000 a day for every American soldier fighting in Libya.  His budget is even more alarming.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzes presidents’ budgets and compares them to numbers to what the statistics actually turn out to be. The CBO found that the proposed White House budget, if enacted, will add $9.5 trillion to the national debt, not Obama’s stated $7.2 trillion.

Obama’s optimistic façade to invest in our future should not be overlooked. We can’t keep cutting programs to “save” money, only to see an increase and not a decrease in our national debt. We’ll end up reluctantly dragging ourselves into the future, in economic shambles.

On day one of the Libya air strikes, the launch of 100 tomahawk missiles totaled somewhere from $112-168 million.  The national debt continues to rise with no end in sight.

Amanda Leonard
Communication Studies
Wilkes 2013

1 comment:

  1. there are no American soldiers on the ground in lybia. maybe you meant iraq and Afghanistan. your right the cost is nauseating for this 'war on terror. but a few cruise missiles to keep the ak wielding college aged underdogs not beheaded for a few more days isn't that big a deal. of course as we pay for missiles they don't want to pay for teachers. thats fun. Libya is a humanitarian disaster. its horrible to see what is happening to them. Qaddafi has to go, but we don't have to be the ones to do. we got our own problems here. maybe the euries will take this one. looking at the middle east it seems like we arent trying too hard to leave any time soon.

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