Long list of war’s high costs

Re “War’s price tag,” Opinion, March 16

Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz didn’t mention one significant effect of the Iraq war on Californians (and all Americans): the plummeting value of the U.S. dollar. The cost to consumers of oil and other imported goods and services is skyrocketing largely because of the huge budget deficits that are substantially caused by the spending on the Iraq war, and the consequent loss of confidence in America’s financial stability by the rest of the world. And as the war drags on, our economy’s stagflation will be even more pronounced and the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates -- further hurting the consumers. There isn’t any bailout possible for America’s consumers when you’ve mortgaged the future to fund an unwinnable war and the interest rates charged by the lenders (foreign countries) are adjustable.

Curt Feese

Covina

As shocking and depressing as Stiglitz’s and Bilmes’ figures are, they do not calculate the long-term societal cost of brain-injured, traumatized, alcoholic, homeless, violent veterans on broken marriages, public safety, overstrained mental health and medical systems and, yes, an economy ravaged by the reckless spending to dominate Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look in any direction -- infrastructure crumbling, schools underfunded, environment degrading, civil liberties eroding, economy in recession -- and you see the fingerprints of this worst-ever government.

Too much that made California and the nation great has been squandered in seven years. Dare we hope that an aroused electorate will rid us of the do-nothings in Congress and the do-everything-wrong presidency? Dare we hope for the equivalent of a New Deal?

The Rev. Pete Sabey

Claremont

The writer, a retired UC Davis campus minister, is a licensed marriage and family therapist.

I think the situation with financing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is much worse than described in this article. For a long time, the neocons have wanted to get our government down to a size that can be drowned in a bathtub (except for the military, of course), eliminating most all government programs that actually benefit our people. I think they have now figured out that the way to bring this about is to bankrupt the country while further enriching themselves and their corporate cronies in the process.

They have made a lot of progress in driving the middle class toward poverty, andif allowed to continue their irresponsible wars and fiscal policies, they just may succeed in creating a two-class society ruled over by a despot who has no regard for our laws or Constitution, a la the Bush administration and its notion of a “unitary president.”

Does anyone even remember when the Republican Party, before its takeover by the neocons, was the party of fiscal responsibility?

Jaycie Ingersoll

Beverly Hills