<<Wasn't that 3 Trillion arrived at by projecting health care costs for returning veterans over 20 years?>>
Yeah, why, you think the cost of their care is going to come down substantially? Economists use formulas for projected future costs that factor in the historical movements of ongoing costs, and they are usually factored upwards, not downwards. There's a reason for that.
The $3 trillion includes future health care costs of returning vets as one element, and a substantial element. That's sound accounting and there is no way you can invalidate those numbers, which will remain a burden on the backs of U.S. taxpayers till liquidated some time in the next century.
Now suppose you address the real issue here, which is why all the wailing and weeping and gnashing of conservative teeth over Obama's spending (which I'd still like to see how and where it comes to $4 trillion) and none at all about the $3 trillion blown by Bush on his totally unnecessary war, a war, moreover, which you insist was not intended to profit America by a single penny. At least Obama can show an economic rationale for whatever it was that he has spent.
