So how much would Romney's porkfilled promise to Israel cost US taxpayers? $500 million dollars? $750 million dollars? A billion dollars?
If Romney loves spending taxpayer dollars to replace buildings we already have and which work perfectly fine now - couldn't he do it in America? It's not as if Democrats don't have bill after bill after bill waiting to be passed by Congress which would do just that. What is it about spending hundreds of millions of dollars overseas rather than here at home that Republicans love so so dearly?
And in terms of the election, why would moderates and undecided voters agree to Romney's plan to flush these hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet to do something every president since Clinton has refused to do based on national security interests? (Yes, Romney's planned embassy will ENRAGE just about everyone but Israel in the region). Why would undecided voters want to pay our taxpayer dollars to do that?
Romney now owes the voters an explanation for this plan of his.
"It's fun to build something when it's not your money," said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, who called the plans a "blank check" for government spending and excess.
...
"Some of the amenities really seem kind of ridiculous and almost medieval," said Williams, criticizing plans for the moat, which will be dug as a security measure to separate the embassy from a busy road nearby. "Are they going to have turrets and sword fights?"
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"We're not confident that any price tag up front for any government project is based in any sort of reality, because it always takes more time to build them, there are always issues that arise that end up costing the taxpayers more."
You've probably guessed by now that the above quotes are from Republicans. In this case they're deriding the planning and construction of a new embassy in London that was started during the Bush administration. You can read the article at Fox News
here. But I wouldn't recommend giving them the traffic.
And that's London.
Can you imagine the costs of constructing and securing a new embassy in Jerusalem? With the Palestinians as enraged as they'd be? How many more hundreds of millions of dollars would it cost in upheaval? How many more hundreds of billions of dollars would it cost if it starts a new conflict?
We've seen this before. Bush's Iraq embassy cost us dearly.
If the Republicans are so hungry to spend taxpayer dollars on overseas construction projects, then they should give us their plan in detail.
How much is this embassy going to cost, Mitt Romney?
How are you going to secure funding?
Why do we need to spend $500M plus on a new embassy in Israel when we already have one?
Wouldn't that money, which would probably be closer to a billion dollars, be better spent on Americans?
Mitt Romney wants to build a redundant embassy worth hundreds of millions of dollars overseas. That's something he's promised to do on day one. With your money.
Is that how you want your money spent with the economy as it is now?
Republicans? You're going to sit there with a straight face and hypocritically tell us we can't afford to spend money here in America on infrastructure construction when you want to build this boondoggle in Israel?
Mitt Romney, you owe us details. You just promised more than $500 million in taxpayer dollars that won't be spent on Americans here at home. Voters are waiting for answers.