John Spratt Quotes
This war so far has cost us $125 billion and counting, because largely we decided to do it on our own, with only the United Kingdom as a paying, fully participating partner.
United States, Congress, House. Representative John Spratt speaking on the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2005. Congressional Record, vol. 150, 24 Mar. 2004, Government Printing Office, 2004.
To a great extent, the same is true in our modern world.
Wilson was very candid that there would be high cost to war and sacrifice would be needed. See {584570} for other similar candor. This quotation was often used by critics of George W. Bush who initiated the Iraq War and then cut taxes for the rich, but then financed the war through the budgetary emergency appropriations bypassing the budget rules that the revenue must be specified to pay for it. His administration even claimed at an early stage in the war that the oil revenue from Iraq oil would defray the costs.
In every American war, there have been those leaders who wanted to fight it “on the cheap.” While most modern people are most aware of the George W. Bush Administration providing insufficient funds to our troops in the Iraq War, there was a problem in the First World War, and President Roosevelt had to twist conservative arms to get the funds necessary for the Second World War. But even the American Revolution had the same problem as this quotation illustrates.
The profits that England made on the North American Colonies and the Caribbean were very large. 10 years before the American Revolution most sophisticated English politicians realized that and one of the reasons the British fought so hard to keep America from Independence was that money.
John McKee Spratt Jr. is an American politician who was the U.S. Representative for South Carolina's 5th congressional district from 1983 to 2011. The 5th Congressional District covers all or part of 14 counties in north-central South Carolina. The largest cities are Rock Hill and Sumter. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
