If WWII got us out of the Great Depression, what is going wrong with the Iraq war?

WWII greatly increased USA spending, borrowing, and taxing.

It's too bad too many people think that war is the only way to get out of a recession.

Most of the time, our economy has ups and downs, called booms and busts.

It's been that way in capitalism for two hundred years.

With good government manipulation of monetary and physical policies, the "busts" have been moderated, and almost eliminated, since WWII.

The spending for the Middle East War, the rebuilding of the Pentagon, and recover in New York City after 9/11 all helped keep boom times going since 2001.

--our nation was going into mild recession, 2000-01.

( Note that the Bush tax cuts that helped the rich most did not bring any significant boom time -- otherwise, the Democrats would not have won control of the House in 2006)

But, some forms of spending work better than others. if not "invested" in something that grows, or helps the economy, fewer jobs are created or sustained in the future..

Tanks, jets, and bombs help the economy only marginally, compared to spending for consumer goods, hardware or capital investment in private businesses. .

Bridges, roads, schools, and rebuilding crumbling levies, sewers, water lines, and power grids DO invest in the nation, and provide the infrastructure for future growth, and prosperity.

I read once that every million dollars spent from our military budget creates about 20 jobs, because of the high cost of explosives, soldier benefits and engineer/weapon production salary costs

Soldiers too have high "overhead" with subsized payments for uniforms, housing, medical care, hospitalization, and retirement costs.

But, spending money on roads, schools, infrastructure, done by private contractors, creates more bang for the buck. Double!.

40 jobs for every million $ spent.

And, infrastructure doesn't have the high future "personnel" cost of spending for military training, and waiting around for the next war.

If FDR had borrowed, taxed, spent for rebuilding America (and building more schools, libraries, power grids, ect) as what government was willing to spend in WWII, then we would have recovered completely in the 30's, no war required..

Anyone that has read FDR's speeches and budget requests, knows that he always had good intentions to balance the budget, and reduce spending ASAP.

Spending was cut in 1936, and another recession hit in 1937. Still employment statistics were better between 1937-38 than in 1933.

It's too bad that some people pray for wars to get the economy going, when in fact, just better spending habits of business, consumers, and government together, can get same results, with more jobs created for each million spent.

Edit: I changed "free uniforms" to subsized uniforms. As retired military person myself, I know the freebies of service. Not that they aren't justifiable.

But, today, to fully equip a combat soldier, compared to in past decades, the cost mounts to over $100,000 per soldier (armour, electronic communicators, night vision devices, gas masks, ect). No private contractor has to subsize this kind of "uniform" for their workers, like in the military.

Second edit: For those who said Reagon got the economy going by lowering taxes. Wrong. He and his Republican Congress continued to spend greater amounts of money, particularly in military weapons. It may have impressed the Soviets, but it doubled out national debt too. As did Bush's tax cuts, drive our national deficit up again, by over 1/3rd higher in just 4 years.

Tax cuts do not STIMULATE, as do public works project, or spending by business to build new factories, plants, and stores do. But, you cannot expect Ford, or Exxon to build new plants, and hire new workers, until consumers spend their incomes on those products and more.

Consumers in a "good economy" account for nearly 70% of demand. Expect that demand now is under 50 percent, so government has to pick up the slack. If it does not, the a recession, becomes a depression, real fast.

The Iraq War is being fought in such a way that it has not gotten the economy working at full capacity, and taxes have been cut at the same time. These things were not true of the Second World War.

Also, despite what the right wingers try to tell you, Roosevelt's New Deal had us well out of the Depression long before WW2.

ONE reason... WWII energized the latent industrial capabilities of the country. We built airplanes, tanks, ships, etc. Mass production technology and infrastructure were incentivized. That ain't happening for Iraq (we're fighting a much different war based far more on guerrilla tactics and insurgency). Plus, between Clinton AND Bush (they are BOTH guilty), most of our manufacturing capability has gone to other countries. War is better for defense contractors when it's conventional, Iraq isn't a conventional war.

One big difference is that our manufacturing base has moved out of the country so 50% of our efforts only serve to stimulate someone else's economy. Think about this little fact..if we did decide to stop importing foreign oil, we don't have the steel mills to produce enough steel to build the oil rigs and platforms that would be needed! Fact is, we have been Sold Out by our own government and [some] corporations..many who aren't even American owned. The scarcest commodity in America today is LOYALTY. Add to this our immigration policy [or lack of one] and we are importing disloyalty! Actions have consequences and the consequences of our actions will be felt by our children and grand children.

edit: to Dave W..."Soldiers too have high "overhead" with free uniforms, housing, medical care, hospitalization, and retirement costs." Wrong! First of all, soldiers only get a [clothing allowance] which covers about one quarter of their expenses. Another thing, SOLDIERS GET NOTHING FOR FREE!!!!!!!

Name me another job where your employer can coll you at 3am and tell you to pack your S**T because you are going to head out to some godforsaken Hell Hole to fight and possibly Die to keep your fellow Americans Safe and Free!!!!!!!! There are far too many G.D. Spoiled people in this country who need to get their heads out of their A$$.

well Iraq war could be the beginning of WWIII and since American people are so angry about everything I think the possibility of another global war is must like very close to our time...

because the men of peace need the men of war in order to exists

Contrary to popular belief, the Iraq war was mildly stimulative to the economy.

Iraq war is very different from WWII. Additionally, we don't need a war to fix the economy. We just need people to stop asking the government to "gimme" everything.

We sold a LOT of armaments and equipment to the allies during WWII

Their money saved us.

And the rationing at home.

And the sacrifice of all Americans.

We need to come together now.

Sacrifice and pull together to sell something to the rest of the world to get money coming in.

The war is not big enough. Reagan got us out of Carters recession just by lowering taxes

Several have already started the 'War on Obama'.

Regarding the Iraq War: Ask the long departed Rummy. He said that 'Iraqi oil would fund the war'.