The Economy vs. The War

It's no longer a matter as to whether the war or the economy is of the most importance. They both are. And they both involve money--big money. When the great depression of the 30s hit, we didn't have a war going on, and we didn't have a huge public debt. The U. S. Government could afford to create work projects and put money into the economy. Because of the big surge in our public debt and the devastating committment to the war, our government is not now in good shape to help the economy. As stated in The Times 10 Ideas article, infra: "If the trillions of dollars that the U.S. is squandering in Iraq was instead being invested in clean energy, disease control and new, ecologically sound ways of growing food, we wouldn't be facing the cusp of a rapidly weakening dollar, soaring food and energy prices and the threats of much worse to come." Now we can't really afford to continue the war, or to fight the recession with big money projects. But both must be dealt with. It's a balancing act.