The Everett Dirkson Billion
Depending upon who you ask, the Iraq war has thus far cost between $300-390 billion and we’re what, halfway through the slog? Maybe a third, or a quarter. Then, once we can finally pull back or pull out, there’s the little item of rebuilding what we’ve bombed into rubble. A trillion? A trillion and a half?
Everett Dirkson, that not-so-long-ago Senator from Illinois famously said, “a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Ev was a sort of ’55 Buick Roadmaster of politics and they don’t make ‘em like Dirkson any more. A man of considerable depth, his replacements in the Senate today, with the possible exception of John McCain, are by comparison a mile wide and an inch deep.
Wars are unpopular in this country. We just don’t love war like we ought to and, because of that, we’re not all that happy about paying for them. And our various presidents, being the ultimate political animals they are, hate like the very devil to ask us to pay for them. But …