POST SCRIPTS

"Our goal remains what it has always been: to end the Iraq War." This campaign will "make the rising costs of the war and the tradeoffs it has forced this country to make a central issue" in this year's elections, said Eli Pariser, executive director of Moveon.org.

"John McCain has made it very clear: he intends to go along with the same exact policy as George Bush," said Edwards. Elizabeth Edwards added her belief that the economy and the war are linked. "If the economy is the No. 1 issue when you are voting, the war is No. 1 too," she said. "There is a connection between the two."

But Brian Riedl, senior budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Cybercast News Service that if Mrs. Edwards is in any way suggesting the war is responsible for the receding economy, she is mistaken. ** "The idea that Iraq spending is causing our economic woes has no basis in any economic theory whatsoever," he said. "It's not economically plausible that spending 1 percent of GDP in Iraq would cause a recession."

PLEASE NOTICE: Nothing in the article or rhetoric of the spokespersons representing "Iraq Campaign 2008" offers statistical evidence to support the claims they have made.

The Heritage Foundation, on the other hand, offers expert information taken directly from government statistics provided by the Office of Management and Budget or the transcript of the Presidets budget for FY 2009:

The President's budget does not jeopardize social spending.

In what has become an annual ritual, the release of the President's budget has been followed by interest groups decrying alleged cuts to social and education spending. The facts do not match the rhetoric. ** By any reasonable standard, President Bush is the biggest antipoverty, health, and education spender in American history. Under President Bush, federal antipoverty spending has topped 3 percent of GDP for the first time ever. Federal education spending has leapt 9.7 percent annually--compared to 2 percent annually under President Clinton. Health research and regulation has grown by 9.5 percent annually.[8] (Office of Management and Budget,) ** Under the FY 2009 budget request, discretionary education funding would increase an additional 3.5 percent, health research spending would be approximately frozen, and antipoverty spending would increase 4.2 percent.[9] Given how much these programs have already expanded in recent years, the President's proposal is more than sufficient.

Or try this:

The Heritage Foundation:

Did you realize corporate income taxes doubled in just four years? Or that, even with the war, we spend less on defense than in the 1970s and ‘80s?

In the months to come we will hear things that are true...and we will be bombarded with lies and distortions. It is up to each of us to do some checking, to discover which groups can be trusted and which can't, and to find out all we can before voting. So please, BEFORE YOU GO TO THE POLLS IN NOVEMBER:

Check out the rhetoric of organizations like "Irag Campaign 2008".

Interesting sidenote: George Soros was the money behind the McCain/Feingold law that restricts and regulates how money flows during campaigns. It's one reason that some Pubbies aren't happy with John McCain as our candidate. Now the very person that financially backed McCain's campaign finance law will spend 20 million bucks to try to defeat McCain in his bid for the presidency. This cycle is filled to the brim with ironies. The law is cr*p; maybe now John knows why.