Guns and Butter, Round Two

In the tumultuous presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, politicos typically referred to Johnson's twin policies of increased intervention in Vietnam and expanded social programs as "guns and butter." While the financial toll of these two fronts separately may have been steep, but bearable, both of them put together brought the American economy to its knees, putting the entire country through a steep slump.

A mere 10 months into his administration, President Barack Obama faces a similar decision: he fights a war allegedly critical to national security in the wilderness of Afghanistan while pushing for health care reform in the even wilder Washington, D.C.. Obama recently called for 30,000 additional troops to be sent into Afghanistan, bringing the total troop level in that country to approximately 98,000, while the level of private contractors is roughly 104,000. On top of it all, official estimates of the $30 billion cost of the buildup is cause for major concern.

Lost in all these big numbers is the little fact that there may very well be fewer than 100 members of Al Qaeda in all of Afghanistan. Add the $30 billion for the troop surge plus the $65 billion already being spent annually on the war in Afghanistan, and do the math: the United States is spending--wait for it-- $950 million per Al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan, per year.

On the home front, the Congressional Budget Office has warned Senate and House Democrats that their proposed health care overhaul will raise costs, not reduce them, and add to the already heavy financial burden. The estimated cost of $1.5 trillion over a decade can only be paid for by raising taxes, borrowing money, or inflating the currency, all three of which are bad options for a president overseeing an economy badly in need of a boost.

All these costs will add to the record $1.8 trillion deficit forecast for the year 2010. Add on to all this gloom and doom the $12 trillion-and-counting national debt and our untold trillions in unfunded liabilities from programs like Medicare and Social Security, and suddenly Obama's war in Afghanistan and health care proposal don't seem like such good ideas even separately, much less combined.

Johnson tried too hard to force his statist agenda on America, and it very nearly broke the country's back. Obama must escape his fantasyland which history can be ignored, and stop to consider the consequences of enacting not one, but two massively expensive programs which, depending on who you ask, are probably not worth the cost even if enacted in better circumstances.