I'm not sure how to analyze this topic, and invite others to participate. Surely, there's a column here for Dr. Krugman.

Starter theses:

1. Spending $1 trillion over the last 5 years, funded with debt, has contributed to long term interest rates remaining higher than the Fed would like;
2. Incurring additional costs of $1 to $2 trillion in payments including, inter alia, medical care for veterans, military equipment replacement, and new weaponry, also contributes to a higher cost of capital for investment by Americans in America.
3. The extra spending on the war has contributed to inflation in commodities.
4. All this extra governent spending represents a very large opportunity cost: if we had spent even $500 billion

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By itself, as a primary voting state, Pennsylvania is not the last minute of a tied basketball game.

The main reason is simple: either Obama or Clinton has a good chance of winning Pennsylvania this fall. So Pennsylvania is not the keystone to deciding who should be the nominee. It is only as important as its number of delegates may be relevant to determining who wins the most delegates; it is not more important than that.

Maybe the Clintons will go so negative against Obama that they harm his chances in Pennsylvania this fall. But so far I see little evidence that even her supporters' most offensive racial innuendo has permanently damaged Obama in the states that have voted. Nor is it clear that if Clinton presents herself as an attacker against Obama that she will be able to bolster, or even maintain her chances in Pennsylvania this fall. There is a cost to attack that is paid by the attacker.

Of course, Obama also could engage in mutally assured destruction, and launch negative campaign tactics against Clinton that could hurt her this fall in Pennsylvania, if she won the nomination. I don't see him doing that. It's not his nature and it doesn't come easily to his campaign. Some think he should be able to go negative more easily, but it truly is part of his broad appeal that he is not innately gifted with the instinct to attack.

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