Yesterday our constituents filed their tax returns, but I wonder how many American taxpayers realize that the average tax return will be consumed in less than half a second in the Iraq war. When we grant the President the additional $100 billion he is asking in emergency funding for Iraq, we will be spending $5,000 a minute and $12 billion a month in a lost cause. The American taxpayer is still paying for Iraq's garbage collection, their schools, their health clinics and their roads. When the Iraqi people themselves are running a surplus. They have almost $70 billion in accumulated surplus now. The last couple of years, they have had $100 billion come in from oil revenue, and they budgeted it at about $55 a barrel. It is now about $112 a barrel. They are generating an enormous surplus that they don't know what to do with, and a whole lot of it is being stolen. And yet we are paying still to collect their garbage. There is something wrong with this picture and the American taxpayer needs to stand up and speak out about it with a full measure of outrage.
Editor's note · Context
Discussing the financial implications of U.S. funding for Iraq during a debate on emergency funding.
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