Guns vs. Butter; Bush Plans Cuts To Education And Agriculture To Pay For More Troops To Iraq And Afghanistan

The twin deep foreign policy problems in Iraq and Afghanistan are having a big impact here at home in the U.S. as the Bush administration is proposing new cuts to education and agriculture, among other programs to pay for sending an additional 8,200 troops to Iraq and Afghanistan at a cost of $3.2 billion dollars. some estimates have claimed the total cost of sending one soldier to Iraq at $200,000 per soldier per year.

Of the 8,200 new troops, 4,700 are headed to Iraq on top of the recent surge of 21,500 troops already announced. $2.5 billion of the $3.5 billion proposal is for Iraq, while the remaider is to send new troops to Afghanistan to train up forces there to combat an expected Springtime spike in Taliban activity as the Winter mountain snows melt and the temperature begins to warm up.

The battle for "guns vs. butter" dollars is a classic one during every recent war. Not only do lower income persons bear the cost of government cuts in programs, but generally those with tighter home budgets also join the service, especially the National Guard or Reserves, because they need the extra money. Recent wars always seem to disportionately impact those one the lower end of the economic spectrum.