800 billion dollars. 500 billion dollars. One trillion dollars.
These figures in and amongst themselves don't register with the American people. We can't make sense of them. They are too big to comprehend.
If the Obama campaign can engage in a little bit of translation, though, they could potentially turn this election into a laugher.
(More below)
Living in the heartland, I can tell you that the No. 1 issue that gives Republicans an edge out here is taxes. Most people struggle with their money, and they perceive that the Republicans are anti-tax and the Dems are the opposite.
Obama needs to talk in terms of the anti-tax party just levying the biggest tax increase in American history on our people, because of their incompetence in governance -- an incompetence supported by the votes and philosophies of John McCain in policies he plans to continue.
The horribly ill-advised War in Iraq that the Dubyah administration thrust upon us is up to about $800 billion in spending. By any measure, it has been a terrible financial burden upon our people (let alone the higher costs in lives lost). Now, the financial market rescue packages being announced today because of regulatory failures during the Dubyah years are estimated to be at least $500 billion, and potentially a lot more.
These are failed policies, and they have an actual cost. The totals are going to be at least in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion. What that means to the average American is a cost of at minimum $12-15,000 per household.
These are mismanagement costs that didn't have to happen. In fact, they never would have happened had Dubyah been saddled up front by an announcement that his policies were going to increase your share of the national burden by these amounts. He would have been unelectable.
So it must be with John McCain. Don't just pin him down with Bush's legacy -- put a price tag behind it. People really respond to that type of argument.
People have to be made to understand that even though these expenses are not being directly levied against them in the form of an up-front tax, they are a tax nonetheless. We either meet these obligations, or pay the price in a crippled economy, a weakened dollar which kills us in the international marketplace, and the continued draining of our national wealth via our financial system. Either route, Americans -- and their pocketbooks -- lose in a big way.
Reckless Republican policies have already "after-taxed" our families to the tunes of tens of thousands of dollars. We literally can't afford more of the same.