Is the Iraq war one of the primary reasons for the federal government’s budget crisis?
No. Although the cost of the Iraq war is significant and damaging, it is not one of the primary long-term problems in our federal budget crisis. The Iraq war cannot be single-handedly blamed for America’s economic problems. Ending the Iraq war is not a major solution for our economic crisis. For example, the Iraq war has cost approximately $400 billion over the last four years or so, but our debt has gone up $2.3 trillion over the same four years. So, even if the Iraq war was taken out of the present budget, it would not come close to dealing with the deficit or the long-term Social Security/Medicare costs of retiring Boomers.
