Iraqi Lawmakers Agree to Cut 2009 Budget

Kelsey Walker

3/5/09

7:14 PM

Last week I talked about the recession issues facing the Iraqi government. This week is a follow up on some of the decisions that they have made. The Iraqi lawmakers have decided to cut the budget that they had set for 2009. They know that it is a election year so they will not touch workers salaries, pensions, or the social support system of food ration and healthcare. They will cut a little more that 7 percent from the budget and also Parliament will take a 10 percent cut from their own salaries to but they will continue to keep a sufficient amount of money, $12,500, for bodyguards. The Iraqi central government still having so much control over the economy had its advantages over many of the Western countries. Western countries who are controlled by private firms are usually forced to fire people or shutdown completely. The Iraqi government believe that they have a solution for the present but they still believe that the worse it to come. Because Iraq harbors all its revenues in oil they do still have some money saved back to help them out a little bit. The prices per barrel is planned to go up however, with the car companies having to close and also the winter season leaving the Iraqi economy is not looking at that much more going in. The government is more stable now than it has been in a few years however, there are still deadly car bombing attacks occurring. This is a result of the militants showing that they still are there and they have power and will have it until the government can do something about it. The sad truth to the car bombing story is the fact that the government cannot do something about it until they are able to put money back into their economy. Because of the budget cuts, less money will go toward the security and Iraqi police, who is heavily needed as America decides to move out of the country. I think that the government needs to start looking toward other was to make revenues because being solely dependent on oil right now is only going to hinder their economy more, at least during the worldwide recession and as of right now there is no head way to moving out of that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/world/middleeast/06iraq.html?_r=1&ref=world