When the Red, White and Blue Is In the Red

(CBS)  During the Johnson administration, the Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen was railing one day against government spending and managed to say, "...a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."

That's almost quaint these days, and I'm not even talking about the cost of health care.

I used to say I had been around so long that nothing surprised me. But last week, I got surprised - I should say I had a jaw-dropping shock is a better way to say it - every time I picked up the newspaper and read about the numbers we're throwing around lately.

Like yesterday when I picked up The New York Times to discover we have spent more money rebuilding Iraq's schools, hospitals, water treatment and electrical plants - $54 billion - than we have spent on any construction project since the Marshall Plan, which you'll recall was to rebuild Europe after World War II.

Sobering but not surprising: Many of those facilities may close when we leave because there are not enough trained Iraqis to operate them.

Another number in the news last week that I found astounding: It is now to keep one U.S. soldier on the ground in Afghanistan, not to mention that for every soldier there, we have one civilian contractor.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

Which helps explain another shocker that came out last week: that 10 years ago, we owed the government of Spain more than we owed China. Yet, when President Obama came calling to China, we owed the Chinese more than a trillion dollars.

Yep, old Ev Dirksen was right. A billion here and a billion there did add up to real money - and a big pile of bills - but has going a trillion dollars in hock to one country made us more secure?

[John_272]

Former HUD employee Thomas Safran charged with fraud over low income affordable housing tax credit properties non-compliance; no equal protection for applicants; Congress asked to investigate Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's "secret society" CTCAC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBy138OqYkU, http://www.hudincomeexclusions.wordpress.com
http://www.not-hud-compliant.spaces.live.com

[ckh123mmm]

Lets not forget about the religious elite that corrupt our processes. Churches pay absolutely no taxes of any kind yet they have a voice as loud as any lobbyist group in the country. It is time to tax the churches. Both property tax and income tax from the churches would be a huge help in balancing the budget. Its time for churches to pay up or shut up.

[GRgrandma]

All China has to do is call in the loans and the US as we know it will be no more. Our government (both republicans and democrats) does nothing but borrow more money to pay on just the interest. It's recipe for failure.

[sjc_1]

There is NO "calling in the loans", they are government Treasury BONDS with a maturity date. They can sell them are a discount or premium on the bond market, but that is ALL.

[dicere]

Not one person dem or rep has suggested reducing spending; which implies a tax increase and continued spending at a madding pass. Have we had enough yet?

[smac761]

Government waste is not a political party problem. It is an American government problem. We need to elect officials who will deal with it as job 1. Re-elect no-one in '010.

[Ferrell-2]

Years ago, our government established The Office of Management and Budgets (OMB) which, I presume, was to serve as a watchdog or an oversight committee on all expenditures. What happened? Obviously, it has no censoring or rejection powers at all on spending and, it seems to me, it routinely acts as just another rubber stamp office for Congress' or the Executive branch's wishes. Does OMB have the power to say NO to some of these outlandish outlays of taxpayers money? Maybe all bills should go through OMB before being voted on in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Perhaps they do but it certainly doesn't appear so. Also, if the OMB honchos are appointed by the ruling Executive party then therein may lie the problem since it would be a no-brainer to question their allegience.

[us_1776]

Bob, the last 3 Republican administrations have engaged in over 9 TRILLION DOLLARS of needless spending on useless wars that only served to line the pockets of the "corporate" war machine companies. And that kind of spending is a total loss to US taxpayers. Not one penny comes back to the treasury. Contrast that with good domestic healthcare reform which by 2019 will have SAVED $130 BILLION in deficit reduction.
What shows the total hypocrisy of the Republicans is that they totally ignore their own massive out-of-control spending habits and are always trying to complain about the Democrats trying to do something good for the people of America and hide behind ridiculous claims of socialism or communisim. What about all the massive "corporate" socialism that has been going on? Never here a peep about THAT socialism from the Republican hypocrits!

[Jack Wiseheimer]

When the US spent billions of US taxpayer money for the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), they gave it as a future investment. They had pampered the West Europeans for more than 40 years after WW II and discovered that they were not so grateful than anticipated. EU and US interests are quite similar, but the main burden of regulating the world's most problematic issues lies on American soldiers. The European Obama fans ought to open their pockets and send more own soldiers. Instead of being cozy with dictators and autocrats, Obama and Hillary should talk shop with European leaders and demand more of their contribution.

[RegVoter]

Credit, Credit, Credit!

Government, business, and individual bad credit are more rampant than swine flu.

Buying things you can not afford, with borrowed money you can not repay has and is going to cause someone a problem!

Trying to hedge bad loans is a vicious spiral which leads to financial ruin.

[ubrew12]

Schieffer: "has going a trillion dollars in hock to one country made us more secure?"
That depends on who you mean by 'us'. If you're the wealthiest 1% of Americans, who have invested heavily in China in the last 10 years, and now own a great deal of BOTH countries (they own 40% of America, double what they owned when Reagan became president), then when America has to pay China back a trillion dollars (plus another trillion in interest), for you it would be like your left hand was paying your right hand, i.e. no big deal.