The War And The Budget

The Libya adventure has already cost more than the discretionary spending cuts desired by the GOP. Under Bush, no war was budgeted, of course - just as new entitlements were not budgeted. The silver lining of Obama's war is that it may finally, for all the wrong reasons, persuade the GOP that war-spending is spending too. Some math:

A no-fly zone like the one military officials described Monday, covering just the northern portion of Libya, likely will cost between $30 million and $100 million per week, [the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments] said. But because it required coalition forces to deal with Libyan air defense systems, there are one-time bills that could cost between $400 million and $800 million, the think tank concluded.

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