The deficit isn’t shrinking.
The armor production capacity isn’t scarce.
And the Bush team isn’t telling the truth.
So what else is new?
No.
No, the President has no intention of cutting the deficit in half by FY 2009, as he promised during the campaign.
No, physical production capacity is not the problem in the slow provision of updated armor for military vehicles in Iraq, as Secretary Rumsfeld told the troops yesterday. The factory could do another 100 vehicles a month (up from its current 450), has told the Pentagon that, and has never been told to speed up production.
Rumsfeld said the problem was “a matter of physics.” That was a mistake. It’s physically possible to put the new armor on, just as it would be physically possible to construct a prudent fiscal policy for the government.
For that matter, Mr. Rumsfeld and George W. Bush are presumably physically capable of telling the truth. They simply choose not to do so.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
Good Lord that is a lot of money
to pay for continued operations in Iraq and Afganistan that that the numbers being bandied about are in the $75-100 Billion dollar range.