Math is a pretty simple thing–except if you are an elected member of Congress engaging in misdirection, blaming the wrong people and a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance (which requires that you reconcile conflicting realities by blaming, justifying or denying the truth). Which brings us to: why do we have deficits? Well, at least $4.4 trillion of the money we don’t have for teachers, roads, jobs and other good things is thanks to a decade of wars–pursued by Republican and Democratic presidents–that have cost us $4.4 trillion.

   Here is the updated info from the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University–it combines a series of studies that does a great job breaking down the economic costs of these foolish wars:

The wars will cost Americans between $3.2 and $4 trillion, including medical care and disability for current and future war veterans…[emphasis added]

   And that doesn’t even count the costs of the secret drone wars and the range of intelligence operations that we only know a sliver of.

   For many years, most of the country hasn’t risen up against the wars because most of the people do not have sons, fathers or daughters dying in the wars or coming home without limbs or with damaged brains (though public opinion has shifted significantly recently). Here is a small factoid to keep in mind that brings it down to earth:

The average homebuyer had to make $600 more in mortgage payments last year because of the rise in interest rates induced by war borrowing.

    We borrowed money to kill hundreds of thousands of people, make a mess in the world and ravage the lives of the people in the military:

Interest is due because the government chose to finance the wars by borrowing rather than raising taxes or reducing other spending.  The U.S. has already paid about $200 billion in interest on war spending over the last decade.  If war spending continues as forecast by the CBO, the country can expect to have paid about $1 trillion in interest by 2020. That number grows if the effect of increased debt on interest rates and thus the cost of servicing all other debt are also included.

What are the effects of deficit spending on interest rates? An increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio of 1 percentage point raises long-term interest rates about 3.5 basis points.  Assuming this relationship holds, then long-term interest rates are currently about 35 basis points above what they would have been in a counterfactual scenario with no war spending.  By 2020 they will be about 70 basis points higher if war spending continues.

Interest rates charged to borrowers by banks and other creditors tend to move one-for-one with interest rates paid on government securities. For a 30-year fixed rate mortgage on a home priced at the median of $250,000 with 90% borrowed funds, an increase of 35 basis points would cost new homeowners roughly an extra $50 per month or about $600 per year given the current rate of 5%. While not large compared to income, this amount is not insignificant. By comparison, the 2001 tax cut rebate checks, which stimulated aggregate demand, were typically $600 per household.

   So, to hammer home this point: one trillion dollars just in interest costs pissed away.

   What did we miss in public investments?:

If the investments in military assets and infrastructure over the last decade had been made in core public economic infrastructure (transportation, roads, utilities, water systems, and sewerage) instead, this would represent a 7.4 percent boost to the current value of key public assets providing an additional $150 billion in benefits to the private sector in terms of increased productivity.

If these capital investments were made in U.S. education infrastructure, it would represent an 18.5 percent boost in terms of capital improvements nationwide.  This would finance the investments in public school facilities required to return the country’s schools to good condition.  The fact that these alternative investments have not been made and the productive benefits of such public assets have not been realized represent real costs of the wars that have been launched since September 11th, 2001.

   And while the real crisis–as opposed to the phony debt and deficit "crisis"–is the lack of jobs, here’s where the people who are walking the unemployment lines got truly screwedby these wars:

$130 billion per year could have created a net increase of jobs in other sectors:  for example, more than 300,000 jobs in construction, or 900,000 jobs in education or about 780,000 jobs in healthcare, assuming here that the education funds are distributed to state and local governments to fund public education in primary, secondary, and higher education.

Alternatively, the federal government could have increased its support for energy efficiency programs such as weatherization of homes and public buildings, or increasing the infrastructure and operations for mass transit.  $130 billion per year in these efficiency programs would have created a net increase of about 500,000 jobs each year.  Spending in renewable energy programs would have created approximately the same number of jobs as the military, but would have contributed to combating climate change and building a more sustainable energy infrastructure.

    And the final point:

If these wars continue, they are on track to require at least another $450 billion in Pentagon spending by 2020.

    These wars are bi-partisan. The political system has been blinded by the march to war–and the people have been sacrificed.

    If we were having a rationale debate, we would end these wars now–and, certainly, not get dragged into yet another war in Libya (notwithstanding the president’s entirely disingenuous parsing of what the word "war" means)–and get back to the task of serving the interests of the people.

    Enough already.