Skip Navigation

The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

McCain's "Peace Dividend"

By The Daily Dish
Jul 7 2008, 1:24 AM ET

A reader writes:

I think you gave McCain more credit than he deserves on that "peace dividend" in this quote from his campaign:

"The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction."

The latter sentence does not make fiscal sense.


It's not a peace dividend because going to zero cost (hypothetically) in Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't bring in more money.  It just means we lose less money each month because it was ALL deficit spending in the first place.  How can you set aside all those "victory" savings to reduce a deficit if all that spending was out of the deficit?  That would be like charging 10k/month solely on frivilous purchases on credit cards, then saying you'll pay off that balance with the 10k you don't spend on future frivilous purchases.

Presented by

More at The Atlantic

We Don't Need a Digital Sabbath, We Need More Time You Don't Need a Break From Technology
9 Faces of the New Egypt 9 Faces of the New Egypt
Can't We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Mass Refinancing? Can't We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Mass Refinancing?
Anne Rice, 'Secret World of Arrietty': The Week Ahead in Pop Culture The Week in Pop Culture
Using the Internet as Matchmaker: The Drawbacks to Online Dating The Drawbacks to Online Dating
Special Report
Submit Your Photos of America at Work AP Submit Your Photos of America at Work
Send us your images of friends, family, and neighbors on the job. We'll publish the best. Read more ›
View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

Athens in Flames

Feb 13, 2012

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)