War Bonds

President Bush has committed to spending $200 billion for the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

We don't have $200 billion. The federal treasury isn't just empty, it's sub-empty. That's what "deficit" means. Or, more to the point, what "record-breaking deficits as far as the eye can see" means. So how to pay for this rebuilding effort?

The president, in keeping with his policy of avoiding "reality-based" approaches, seems to think this $200 billion can be magically spent without either cutting spending elsewhere or raising taxes. House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas, has declared that there is "no fat" to be trimmed from the federal budget.

Bush and Delay's fellow Republicans have been reluctant to state frankly that their party's leaders are frighteningly clueless, so they've just decided to ignore the above statements and proceed with the business of figuring out how to pay for the rebuilding. (This happens a lot. It can't be easy being a Republican these days and having to hope nobody notices when President Ralphie says something indefensibly oddball and out of touch.)

One of the ideas they're kicking around now, according to USA Today, is to: "Sell bonds similar to World War II's Liberty Bonds."

World War II's Liberty Bonds, of course, did not fund a rebuilding project -- they funded World War II. See, back in the 20th century, America used to pay for it's wars with something other than a stack of credit cards and IOU's from our grandchildren.

I like the idea of bringing back "bonds similar to World War II's Liberty Bonds," but I wouldn't use them to pay for the Katrina rebuilding. I'd use the war bonds to pay for the war. The war in Iraq has, coincidentally, cost about $200 billion so far. Where is that money coming from? According to the president, it's more magic money -- spent without offsetting spending cuts or tax increases.

I have little hope that our no-responsibility/no-accountability government is capable of launching (or administering) a 21st-century war bonds program. But that's not the only problem.

I'm not sure the public could handle it either.

This is, after all, the same American public that thinks "support for the troops" entails nothing more than putting a yellow-ribbon magnet on your car. These people can't even make the kind of long-term commitment involved in an adhesive bumper-sticker. Magnets don't jeopardize your paint job. And magnets can be easily removed should the political winds shift. (Quick -- take off the "support the troops" magnet and slap on the "I support our new ant overlords" magnet!)

The War Bonds poster above comes from the fascinating, and inspiring, collection of WWII posters at Northwestern University. Go over and browse through this collection. It's a portrait of a different time and a different world. Every American was, at some level -- and usually a level involving sacrifice -- engaged in the war effort. People on the homefront invested whatever they could spare in war bonds. They lived with rationing and recycled everything.

That's not the case now. If you're not enlisted in America's military, you're not involved in the war in Iraq. You have neither the obligation, nor the opportunity to contribute to or sacrifice for the war effort. And your president insists that this is the way it should be.

The American public does not today have the character to support a new war bonds effort. (We don't have the savings, either, since most of us are in debt up to our eyeballs. Our national savings rate is negative -- and likely headed down once the housing bubble bursts. But bracket that for now.)

So here's a modest proposal for a remedial first step: Have the USO start selling "official" versions of those @#&$ "Support the Troops" magnets. Full-sized ones would cost, say, $500. Smaller ones would cost $100. Whenever you spotted someone with one of the unofficial magnets, you'd be justified -- even obliged -- to mock them as a freeloading, fair-weather patriot until finally they were shamed into putting their money where their tailpipe is.

The USO's budget, of course, has little to do with the actual cost of the war. But at least this would ensure that "the troops" would benefit from the intangible, ineffectual "support" which now seems so widespread, smug and shallow. And by reconnecting patriotism with the idea of making a contribution it might help to reshape our national character so that we might, once again, be capable of something like a war bonds effort.

Comments

[Patrick (G)]

uhm, a bond is essentially an IOU. when you buy a bond, you are essentially loaning the governnment that amount of money (albeit at a subpar interest rate); and there is an expectation that the money will be paid back (The USG never having defaulted, blahblah blah).

Ultimately, the money used to pay back the bond holders comes from Taxes. I'd be willing to bet that war bonds is why the Top Marginal Tax rate under Eisenhower was 95% (compared to 36% now). Of course, that was back when being a fiscal conservative wasn't a contradiction in terms.

I don't and wouldn't buy bonds from the Bush Administration; they're not backed by anything except the belief that the US Government, which in practice means the clowns currently in charge, wouldn't default on them. Not defaulting would require making sure that there is revenue to cover the expenditure or, at very minimum, the interest.

Until a future administration (Democrat, Republican, Green, whatever) significantly raises its taxes, lending to the Government is like maintaining a bar tab for a drunk who's lost his job, steals from his wife, and compulsively gambles.

No thank you.

[Karmakin]

The Religious Right Republican people..well..they don't do sacrifice. Sacrifice is for those other pepole. The women. The homosexuals. THey have to sacrifice.

To them..sacrifice is for chumps.

[Rebecca Allen, PhD]

I'm not so sure this is because of a decline in the American character. I think it has more to do with the distinction between a war of choice and one of necessity. WWII was the ultimate necessary war, and the public understood that. Some of the difference, of course, had to do with leadership: FDR did an outstanding job of rallying the country to the cause, in marked contrast to GWB's unending fecklessness. But there are also important differences between the wars themselves. People felt the survival of the US, and possibly their own personal survival, were at stake during WWII. The public perceives, accurately, that Iraq never posed that type of threat (especially now that the public knows there were never any WMD).

[Lila]

I believe there has been a decline in the American character. Specifically, I think many people around my age (I was born in '61) have refused, in part or entirely, to grow up. I do not except myself; I'm still being subsidized by my elderly mother (who still has a couple ration books and was a block captain during the War).

There are two things on my WWII nostalgia list: (1) gas rationing and (2) "victory" gardens. Before anyone starts up on how nobody has any land, let me point out that huge numbers of Americans live in the suburbs, and that a significant chunk of a family's diet can be provided by an intensively cultivated 10-foot by 10-foot plot, especially if you grow vining crops like tomatoes on one end and trellis them. (Yes, I have tried it. Recommended reading: Mel Bartholomew, Square Foot Gardening; Ruth Stout, How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back; John Jeavons, How to Grow More Vegetables than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land than You Can Imagine.)

If even a small proportion of us grew a small proportion of our own food, we would save a tremendous amount of the diesel that presently trucks our food thousands of miles from field to table. Not to mention the improvement to our health from eating, you know, real food.

As for gas rationing, I'd like to see some mechanism that would allow everyone a reasonable amount of fuel at an affordable price, especially those whose livelihood depends on driving.

[jwhook]

The lack of a call for sacrifice; the spendthrift ways of Reagan and Bush; even before we get to an unjustified war, one wonders who, exactly, these people are, and what, exactly, do they beieve in. While the WWII poster is cool, and the unified effort of the country was remarkable, a leader can call on that effort at any time. And should for the good of the country, and the good of the world.

Most remember Kennedy's stirring words, "Ask not..." He followed those words up with detailed words, calls to sacrifice and action. In the same speech where Kennedy called for action to put a man on the moon in the decade, he said this.

"The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe--Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East--the lands of the rising peoples. Their revolution is the greatest in human history. They seek an end to injustice, tyranny, and exploitation. More than an end, they seek a beginning."

There was the challenge. In many ways, we owe our current predicament to the failures to follow through on his calls to meet the Soviet threat in a humanitarian way. Instead, we diddled around with petty dictators and playing Iran against Iraq, selling weapons to both, and managed to get Bin Laden trained in the meantime.

And how were we to meet the challenge? First he talked about our strong economy, to be used as an engine of change. The heart of this message is contained in these words, "...to provide generously of our skills, and our capital, and our food to assist the peoples of the less-developed nations to reach their goals in freedom--to help them before they are engulfed in crisis."

And finally, what would it take on our part to meet this challenge? Let a real leader have the final words:

"“Finally, our greatest asset in this struggle is the American people--their willingness to pay the price for these programs--to understand and accept a long struggle--to share their resources with other less fortunate people--to meet the tax levels and close the tax loopholes I have requested--to exercise self-restraint instead of pushing up wages or prices, or over-producing certain crops, or spreading military secrets, or urging unessential expenditures or improper monopolies or harmful work stoppages--to serve in the Peace Corps or the Armed Services or the Federal Civil Service or the Congress--to strive for excellence in their schools, in their cities and in their physical fitness and that of their children--to take part in Civil Defense--to pay higher postal rates, and higher payroll taxes and higher teachers' salaries, in order to strengthen our society--to show friendship to students and visitors from other lands who visit us and go back in many cases to be the future leaders, with an image of America--and I want that image, and I know you do, to be affirmative and positive--and, finally, to practice democracy at home, in all States, with all races, to respect each other and to protect the Constitutional rights of all citizens.”

[bellatrys]

Don't give in to the urge to canonize the WWII generation. They didn't question enough, they lived the chaos and fucked-up ness of the 20s and 30s, and they tamely submitted to the Forever War and fearmongering and trust-your-Big-Brother-gubmint of the 50s and 60s, and raised their children with a shut up and a striking hand, and now are bewildered and retreating - with yes, some exceptions, as there were even in the 1950s - in the face of what they wrought by what they did, or failed to do.

Granted, they inherited a clusterfuck coming from their own parents and grandparents' refusal to think about where cheap sugar, coffee, and tires were coming from, and how their actions and inactions and refusal to deal with their own evil at home or abroad (the Final Solution was after all modeled and inspired by Jim Crow, and subsidized by the First Families of America, while Musolini was feted and a hero of the American empire court-martialed for calling him a murderer, for his law'n'-order downpressing of those rebellious commie peasants--)

--but that as an excuse only goes so far. I, too, was raised to praise theocracy over democracy, and value obedience qua obedience as one of the higher virtues...for which ignorance, in part imbued, but long thereafter willful, I atone daily.

The kids of today, that *I* know - the ones who are driving down to DC tonight, the ones who can't because they can't afford to forfeit scholarships both - they are in many ways more noble and selfless and *wise* than any of my grandparents, and not just the drunken abusive war hero ones, either.

[SPG]

I read more than one account when the magnets were getting very popular of groups that attempted to sell them at events to raise money directly for the troops, and that every story ended the same way... we lost money because nobody would buy a magnet for a dollar more than Wal Mart sells it.
Has anyone done the research to see where all the magnet money goes? How much to Chinese magnet makers? How much to Wal Mart and the other retialers? How much to thedistributors? I know how much the troops get...nothing.

BTW, Do you really think that the republicans would go against the supermarket and agribusiness interests to even suggest victory gardens?

[Mark]

Lila: I'd like to see some mechanism that would allow everyone a reasonable amount of fuel at an affordable price, especially those whose livelihood depends on driving.

Good for you. I'm glad you know what you want.

The mechanism we've had for that, which has worked pretty well most of the time but has run into some problems of late, is to pump crude oil out of the ground, distill out a mixture of middleweight hydrocarbons, and truck it to retail outlets on street corners where it's sold. If you're going to improve on that, you need to do one of the following:

(a) find a source other than underground crude oil;
(b) develop a better process for converting it into usable fuel; or
(c) find a more efficient way to distribute it than trucking it to street corners.

However, if you're motivated by nostalgia for WWII pseudo-socialism rather than a desire to actually improve the process, your solution probably looks like:

(d) do exactly what we're doing now, except that no one is allowed to buy "too much" fuel, for some value of "too much". That is, if I want fuel, I can't just go and buy it; I have to justify my existence to some bureaucrat who will decide whether I'm using it for a sufficiently noble purpose. Because the bureaucrats know who signs their paychecks, "noble purpose" is defined by the current political climate; ammunition trucks get fuel before vegetable trucks.

"Sacrifice", like "Courage", is a virtue only if it's directed toward a virtuous result. When the Powers That Be call for sacrifice, they mean sacrifice to Ares.

"There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and Love of the Fatherland."
-- Hitler

[Ray]

Gee Mark, way to convince people you're interested in an open and respectful exchange of views.

[Fernmonkey]

Thanks for that marvellous WWII poster resource.

This poster made me smile. I grew up in 80s Britain, not exactly a poor country, and the meat ration for one adult there is more than my entire family of four usually ate in a week!

I have a theory that the actual point of the post-9/11 enhanced airport security is to make people constantly feel that There's A War On and so therefore they have to make small sacrifices and Every Little Helps.

[The Pissed-Off Progressive]

I admit that the ideas of rationing, war bonds, and victory gardens have a lot of appeal--I like them so much that one of my hobbies is collecting WWI rationing ephemera (books, pamphlets, posters, etc.). I like to think that there was a time when the majority of Americans were noble and generous and propped up their fellow citizens by giving of themselves, their gifts, and their offerings. However, I've read some interesting oral histories that talk about the widespread corruption of the rationing system (according to these, the wealthy people in many towns seemed to always have enough gas to go on trips, and enough sugar and butter for dinner parties... mainly because they could usually find merchants who, for a price, would ignore the rationing restrictions and sell what they had, which often included surpluses of some rationed goods).

I think that most Americans on the homefront in WWII followed the rules that the government set out--some blindly, as SPG suggests, but also because they had a sincere urge toward patriotism. I think a lot of the people who have the silly magnets have that same urge, but the kind of sacrifice of convenience that actually doing something concrete to "support the troops" would entail is completely alien to those of us under about 70. It wasn't, to the generations that rationed and victory-gardened and bought war bonds; they came up from WWI and the Depression, and they were knew what they were getting into (there was rationing during WWI too).

My opinion is that the reason Bush et al. have never suggested any kind of personal sacrifice to finance their stupid war is that even President Ralphie can see that such a suggestion would be so incredibly unpopular with the public that there would be no congressional support for it. And also, it might mean that he'd have to give up his F-250 and at least a few of the score of heavily armored SUVs that escort him everywhere. Oh, and not spend quite so much time and fuel flying around on Air Force One avoiding responsibility for national disasters.

(...and good point about war bonds, Patrick. I wouldn't buy them from this administration either.)

[Lucia]

Naive as this may sound, I think we should all try to cut our oil consumption by turning off lights, carpooling, taking the bus, hanging up a clothesline, whatever works. (The Canadian government provides this helpful guide. Unlike us, they have global warming.)

Fareed Zakaria thinks this would help the war effort. It will certainly help the environment and our wallets.

Of course some people will always indulge their greed. To paraphrase two good men, John McCain and Fred, I don't care what they do, I care what I do.

[J]

Frankly I'm pretty happy with the lack of demands for national "sacrifice", because this is not "my" war, its is THEIR war. I have never voted for this president, nor did I ever support the war, nor do I much care what happens to it now.

Whatever happens in Iraq, I for one can take comfort that it will be the defeat of one or another group of violent, mysogynist, homophobic, faith-based neanderthals.

[Lila]

Wow, Mark, sorry if I hit a nerve there.

I'm trying to envision a solution for this problem: we have a limited, nonrenewable resource that is currently critical not only for the functioning of our country but for the individual livelihood of many of its citizens. I foresee a time soon when there simply will not be enough gasoline to go around.

Do you have an alternative suggestion, or is it fine with you for freight companies, independent truckers, school districts and manufacturing plants to be priced out of the market as gasoline and diesel fuel become luxury products?

I almost included jet fuel in that list, but perusing the headlines on Delta's current situation suggests that's no longer a matter for speculation.

[R. Mildred]

I'm not so sure this is because of a decline in the American character. I think it has more to do with the distinction between a war of choice and one of necessity. WWII was the ultimate necessary war, and the public understood that.

A war so neccesary that they didn't get involved until two years after it had started in europe, and many more years since it had started in asia.

It was only afterwards in hindsight that it was seen as a neccesary war. And the greatest generation didn't just accept and not challenge segregation and jim crow laws, they activly worked to counter the civil rights movement that was born from an active rebellion against the greatest generation.

they weren't better than any other generation, they were just more accepting of sacrifice for the sake of survival becaused they'd been forced to saved and make do without during the depression.

there was no golden age, there is no greatest generation, there are merely grumpy old farts with selective memories who are wigged out by change and can't accept that hippies kicked there asses during the sixties.

[Christopher Davis]

Regarding SPG's comment: The first place I saw ribbon magnets for sale was at Fort Bragg, at a Family Readiness Group event. (They were doing short video greetings to their husbands & fathers; I was, IIRC, the only male there with more than a one-digit age, as I was down visiting my sister-in-law and niece while my brother flew MEDEVAC missions out of Balad.) $5 each, money to the FRG; I bought two, which are still sitting on my minifridge at work.

So, as far as I can tell, they started out as a way to actually support the troops (and their families); later, of course, they became a way to cover up that paint scratch on your Hummer H2.

[Aldabra]

Why would you spend $500 on a magnet when you could just take one off someone else's car? You'd have to glue them on, which turns it into a long-term commitment.

[Devon]

On the topic of war bonds, that would be good money after bad, under any administration these days. Doesn't matter if the Democrats gain full power over the White House and Congress in a few years. We're so far in debt, with so little accountability, that giving more to the government than is required by law would be insane. In the (non-partisan) reality-based world, we see that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and there's precious little - if anything - to be done about it.

Thankfully, my spiritualty (an amalgamation of eastern and western lines of thinking) makes me ok with that. I "pray" you all are as well.

[Scared]

If you think I'm clicking on a link to bubblebathgirl.com from work, there is a structure available for you to purchase on Water Street in Manhattan.

Mark - Lila had a point.

Many places do this with water. Water up to the normal usage for a household is, say $.02 per hundred gallons. If you use more than that, it's $.10 per hundred gallons. Usually there are a few steps.

This means that there are no restrictions on gasoline, you can buy all you want. However, people who keep their gasoline usage low are rewarded by being able to stay within the lower price bracket. Gas companies can make up the smaller profits in the lower brackets (I wouldn't make anybody sell at a loss) by charging more in the upper brackets.

[Texmandie]

Those communists in charge of auto registrations and fuel sales for USAREUR (US Army in Europe) allow us to buy 400 liters a month (105.8 gallons) in fuel priced at US-style rates (set each month by the US pre-tax average, plus distribution costs). That's more than enough to drive my Volvo S40 at appalingly high speeds all over Germany for over 31,000 miles, or 38,000 miles per year if I stick to the recommended speed limit of about 80 mph. Past that, I get to pay what the Germans pay - about $6.50/gallon these days.

However, it's restrictive enough that I'm glad I don't drive a 15 mpg SUV. The allowance is more generous for minivans (which seat at least seven), figuring you didn't buy that thing because you thought it was a sweet ride, but actually have kids you need to haul.

I am all for a rationing system like that for personal autos in the US. That's the right maximum amount, too (in fact, I think it should be lower for us USAREUR drivers). Drive a vehicle that conforms with CAFE for passenger cars (27.5 MPG or better)? More than enough gasoline. Drive a land yacht? You have some decisions to make. Adjust for number of family members, perhaps. Americans would be startled at how many Germans with three children find the Golf and similarly-sized cars to be quite adequate, though...

The US Army is interesting, as it seems to me, a civilian who works for them, to be a socialist meritocracy (ideally on that "meritocracy" part). Housing allowances are based on both rank AND family size, for starters, and health care is guaranteed for both the soldier and his/her dependents, no matter what rank. Gasoline is price-controlled - you know how much gas will be the entire next month by the 29th of the current month. Dining facility meals are priced lower for lower-ranking enlistedmen/women's family members (and they're already pretty inexpensive as it is).

[Niels Jackson]

Um, Earth to Fred Clark here: The United States doesn't finance anything with "IOUs." Or, actually, it does, except that the IOUs are called, in technical terms, "BONDS." In other words, the United States today borrow money by means of selling bonds, just as the WWII government borrowed money by means of selling bonds. Which makes it exceedingly dense to write, "See, back in the 20th century, America used to pay for it's wars with something other than a stack of credit cards and IOU's from our grandchildren."

[B-W]

R. Mildred said: A war so neccesary that they didn't get involved until two years after it had started in europe, and many more years since it had started in asia.

Doesn't that make the point that war really was "neccessary"? The US, for less than noble reasons perhaps, tried to stay out of it for as long as they could. It was only when they couldn't avoid it any more (because they themselves had been attacked) that they got involved. It became "neccessary."

Actually, I agree with the bulk of your post, but this line just didn't seem to work for me....

[sara]

For those prices, the yellow ribbon would have to be permanent (don't get me wrong, I'm not hoping for a Forever War) like the American flags that people ordered their SUVs with after 9-11, part of the paint job. Or else pikers would find a way to steal the magnetic ribbons and sell the $500 ones for $100, and the $100 ones for $50.

Capitalism.

Now, whenever I see one of those SUVs with the flag, and realize that the driver probably bought it after 9-11 as a patriotic gesture, grrr. . . .

I myself don't have a car, and take public transportation or walk, but I live near Washington, D.C. The public transportation is pretty good, but people are devoted to their cars, which they drive very badly, in one of the nation's worst traffic areas. Often I have outwalked a line of cars as they wait at a bottleneck in suburbs that were never meant to take the traffic.

[Epacris]

I have a theory that the actual point of the post-9/11 enhanced airport security is to make people constantly feel that There's A War On and so therefore they have to make small sacrifices and Every Little Helps."

Fernmonkey, have you ever read a book called Nineteen Eighty-four?

[Fernmonkey]

Epacris: I'm going to try very hard not to take that question as a personal insult, but yes of course. I don't think we've really come to that, but I see your point.

[Faggo]

Sometime I think 1984 is the only book the internet has read.

[Scott Parkerson]

Support our new ant overlords!

Now, you can.

[Jacob Davies]

Before I saw the magnets for sale I assumed the proceeds made at least a token contribution to something troop-related (like poppies on Remembrance Day in the UK, which funds the Royal British Legion). I was quite shocked when I saw them and saw they made no such claim.

I was walking through a Target sometime earlier this year and came across a rack with a big "LOWEST PRICE" (or something) tag on it and a rack of "Support Our Troops" magnets underneath. Yes, if you wouldn't Support Our Troops at $2.99 but you might at $2.19, this was the store for you!

I just can't imagine the person asked to put that up not refusing in disgust. But I guess I can't imagine a lot of things. I can't imagine putting a magnet like that on the back of an H2, a big boy's Army toy for people who want to pretend like they're soldiers, but wouldn't dream of joining the Army and perhaps getting actually killed in an actual Hummer in Iraq; but I see that all the time. Something inside their heads ought to be exploding at the cognitive dissonance there.

[Scott]

This is, after all, the same American public that thinks "support for the troops" entails nothing more than putting a yellow-ribbon magnet on your car.

Maybe we should start a national campaign to walk around parking lots and super-glue those magnets onto the cars that have them. "Officer, arrest him - I didn't want to support the troops permanently or anything." :-)

[Fernmonkey]

I'm quite pleased with this ribbon, if I do say so myself.

[Fernmonkey]

I'm quite pleased with this ribbon, if I do say so myself.

[Foreign Interests]

You American are so unaware of whats Really going on in the midle east it hilarious. You dont need to worry about what your president is doing because by the time you figure it out it will be too late to stop him. Now dont get me wrong, I personally dont think he should be stopped. It is clear to me that he has the best interest of English North America in mind or at the very least the best interests of the USA. You Americans shouldn't worry about the price of oil, deficit or the war in the Midle East, President Bush has everything well in hand, however I feel the need to warn you that the Presidents master plan has yet to unfold and will involve a mass military indever.
Sincerely Foreign Interests

[Ada Bennett]

If anyone wants to really help the troops in Iraq, consider recycling your magnets with Magnets for Armor - http://www.magnetsforarmor.org

Last year the Army Material Command launched a series of experiments to determine the effect of covering Humvees with the magnetized ribbons. They discovered that a large number of magnets would create a force field strong enough to repel small arms fire.

The magnetized ribbons may help to compensate for shortages of a critical high-tensile steel and ballistic glass for windshields and door windows.

Refrigerator Magnets work just as well too! Please send your magnets to:
Magnets for Armor
PO Box 122
Frostburg, MD 21532