The Sunday newspaper published a letter to the editor which was a brief, but accurate, summary of why our dollar growing weaker. The writer pointed out that our national debt has doubled in the last seven years. He writes that the federal reserve prints more dollars to cover the United States’ deficit spending and thus devalues the dollar through inflation. He notes that the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf are considering the abandonment of the dollar as their sole reserve currency. Kuwait took that measure last May and Iraq was planning to switch to Euros until we invaded that country.

The Senate voted to raise the federal debt ceiling by $781 billion to a $8.97 trillion level. Every Democrat and three Republicans voted against it, but the Republican majority passed the bill anyway. In September of 2000 President Clinton had a federal budget surplus of $230 billion which George Bush inherited. In the time the Bush administration has been in office that surplus has turned into a enormous deficit. We can thank Iraq for that fact.

Remember when the Bush administration suggested the war could be paid for out of the oil production in Iraq? And what about the fact that before the invasion, the Pentagon had estimated Iraq would cost about $50 billion. When a White House economic advisor disagreed suggesting the cost could go to $200 billion, Mr. Bush fired him. Well, It turns out the daily cost of the total operation runs some $300 million a day by estimates. After awhile "millions, billions, trillions" all begin to sound the same. It turns out the cost of the war is some $3 trillion dollars. Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel price for economics and a Harvard budget expert says the Bush administration has continuously underestimated the cost of the war and the hidden costs are even greater.

In 1923 under the Weimar Republic the U.S. Dollar was worth 7,000,000 German marks. By the time hyperinflation had ended in April 1924 the U.S. dollar was then worth 4.2 trillion marks. The German government had printed more money (just as the US government is now doing) and with overwhelming debt the German economy was in a shambles. German marks were hauled around in wagons it took so many to buy just basic necessities. I’m not predicting that doomsday situation for America, but I do think it clear we cannot afford to continue to support the Iraq invasion without paying a very painful economic price for doing so. This war has become a quagmire of insanity which this administration continues to support and the next administration as well as you and your children will be paying for it.