Libya, Japan...Where Do We Get The Money?

We don’t understand how this works!

It was reported yesterday that the Obama administration is contemplating ramping up our military involvement in Libya.  Talk of implementing a “No fly Zone” has now morphed into a serious discussion of inserting American troops onto Libyan soil.  The Gadhafi government has been slaughtering anyone who would dare to oppose the regime. The President has clearly and succinctly stated that the Gadhafi regime must go; and now the administration finds itself in the difficult position of backing up that pronouncement.

Then there is the matter of Japan.  The President has spoken to the Japanese government and personally offered whatever assistance necessary to help the Japanese people through this horrible tragedy.

The circumstances in Libya and Japan cry out for the assistance of all of mankind.  And for the for United States, the self proclaimed leader of the world,  to offer any assistance necessary to help those who are suffering is the right and compassionate thing to do.  Anyone watching the horrific images on television could not argue the point.  But our involvement in these two very different situations will be a massive undertaking and consequently poses one basic question.

How are we paying for this?  Make no mistake; we do not question the worthiness of the effort.  We just don’t understand how we can afford such benevolence in our current financial condition.

We have been told by our elected leaders that we are broke.   They tell us we are soon to become the next Greece; defaulting on our obligations and plunging into the economic abyss.  We are so broke that the Republicans have withheld unemployment benefits and recommended the reduction in funding for education, infrastructure, research and development and innovation projects.  We are so broke that they want to cut Medicare and Medicaid and privatize social security.  They even want to cut home heating oil assistance for the elderly.  If you can’t afford to keep your elderly from freezing to death than you certainly MUST be broke.

So if that is the case then one must ask; where is the money coming from to pay for what will be billions of dollars in assistance to Libya and Japan.  The fiscally responsible Republicans have been strangely quiet about the economic repercussions of these issues.  In fact Senators McCain and Liebermann have been saber rattling for us to move into Libya for quite some time.  The Democrats are no better.  Senator Kerry has been in lockstep with McCain.  Evidently we CAN afford another war…we just cannot afford to take care of our elderly.

It seems apparent that we will finance our involvement in Libya and Japan the same way we financed the extension of one trillion dollars in tax cuts for the wealthiest of our citizens; we’ll just borrow it from China.