Democrat Claim	The Truth
“Dems hitch economic downturn to war” (Politico, 1/29/08) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA): "The war is the primary reason for this recession and we have to drum that home.” (Mother Jones, 2/29/08)	The “Iraq recession” fallacy – manufactured by a liberal economist – has been discredited by a number of experts, including other liberal economists. Princeton University Economist and New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman: “An Iraq recession? One thing I get asked fairly often is whether the Iraq war is responsible for our economic difficulties. The answer (with slight qualifications) is no ... Overall, though, the story of America’s economic difficulties is about the bursting housing bubble, not the war.” (“Conscience of a Liberal,” 1/29/08) “When President Bush said last week that ‘spending in the war might help with jobs’ and that ‘this economy is down because we built too many houses and the economy’s adjusting,’ even well-known Bush-basher Paul Krugman had to concede the point. In a blog post, he wrote, ‘Hate to say this, but he’s right.’” (Mother Jones, 2/29/08) Dean Baker, the co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research: "There are lots of bad things you could say about [the war]. It didn't cause the recession … Baker also agrees with the president on the cause of the recession. ‘It's the housing bubble,’ he says, adding that there's ‘no ambiguity.’” (Mother Jones, 2/29/08) It should also be noted that Professor Joseph Stiglitz, the economist credited with originating the ‘Iraq recession’ fallacy, served on the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. (Biography)
Senator Barack Obama “argued that the war … had contributed to higher oil prices. ‘When you’re spending over $50 to fill up your car because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you’re paying a price for this war,’ he said.” (Wall Street Journal, “Washington Wire,” 3/20/08)	False. Experts say rising oil prices are due to increased demand. In February, Iraq produced an average 2.4 million barrels of oil per day, close to the peak pre-war level of 2.5 million barrels a day. (AP, 3/31/08, Council on Foreign Relations, 6/20/07) Max Boot, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations: “In short, it is absurd to suggest that a lack of Iraqi production is responsible for the rise in oil prices; the likely culprits are increased demand in China, India, and other emerging markets.” (Commentary Magazine, 3/21/08) Trilby Lundberg, editor of the nationwide Lundburg survey on the “essential causes” of high gas prices: "The essential causes are strong crude oil prices, dramatically higher ethanol prices and seasonally rising gasoline demand.” (Reuters, 4/6/08)
Democrat Leaders: “The current Iraq strategy … requires the United States to spend additional hundreds of billions of dollars despite urgent national needs in education, health care, and infrastructure improvement….” (Democrat Leaders’ Letter to President Bush, 4/4/08)	Funding for troops and operations in Iraq amounts less than 1 percent of our overall economy. By comparison, funding for World War II exceeded 34 percent of our overall economy. Max Boot, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations: “The overall size of our economy is $13.1 trillion. So the Iraq War is costing us less than 1% of GDP (0.91% to be exact) [“at $120 billion a year”]. Even if you add in the entire defense budget that still only gets us to roughly 4% of GDP—roughly half of what we spent on average during the Cold War, to say nothing of previous ‘hot’ wars such as World War II (34.5% of GDP), Korea (11.7%), and Vietnam (8.9%).” (Commentary Magazine, 3/21/08) Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute: “Defense spending as a percentage of total federal spending is now around 20 percent. In World War II, it ranged from 73 percent to 89.5 percent; in Korea it ranged from 32.2 percent (1950 — 51.8 percent in 1951) to 69.5 percent; and in Vietnam from 42.8 percent to 46 percent. In more context: at the height of spending on this war, defense spending was only 12.3 percent of all public spending (including federal, state, and local expenditures); in World War II the high was 82.1 percent; in Korea, 52.5 percent; and in Vietnam 31.3 percent.” (National Review, 4/7/08)