This War With Iran Will Cost More Than We Can Afford |
This War With Iran Will Cost More Than We Can Afford
Iraq cost us $6 trillion. Even a short Iran war could add $1 trillion to a budget deficit that Trump may already be tripling.
With “affordability” the Democrats’ watchword of the moment, I’m surprised more haven’t pointed out that President Donald Trump’s undeclared war on Iran costs more than Americans can afford. By this I don’t mean American soldiers killed (seven thus far), which of course is the greatest concern. Nor do I mean how many other people will be killed (1663 so far, according to The Independent, including 175 at a girls’ school struck by one of our Tomahawks and another 83 children in Lebanon, according to that country’s health ministry).
Rather, I’m thinking about the secondary but nonetheless urgent matter of dollars and cents.
Five days before the war began I pointed out that Trump’s Treasury was, as Kris Kristofferson would say, busted flat in Baton Rouge. Already Trump’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill had pissed away $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years, nearly doubling the budget deficit. The Supreme Court’s cancellation of Trump’s illegal 10 percent tariffs on all foreign products meant Trump might end up tripling the budget deficit over the next decade. Trump is trying to recoup his tariff losses by imposing temporary tariffs under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. But Trump’s own lawyers have argued in court that such an application is illegal, a conclusion with which 24 Democratically-controlled states agreed in a lawsuit filed March 5.
Worries about the budget deficit already had the bond market raising the cost of government borrowing. The outbreak of war pushed the 10-year yield on Treasuries even higher as the price of oil shot past $100 per barrel thanks to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a president, you may recall, who won in 2024 on the strength of his promise to lower inflation. Instead, we’re getting an oil-driven inflation........