Remember that $48 billion I lent you? Um, yeah...

It seems like just about everybody is profiting from the high price of oil these days. That is, everyone except the U.S. Taxpayer.

The following is an excerpt from a New York Times News Service story that appears in today's Boston Globe:

The soaring price of oil will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year's end, an American federal oversight agency has concluded in an analysis released yesterday.

The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales from 2005 through 2008, appears likely to put an uncomfortable new focus on the approximately $48 billion in American taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the American-led invasion.

The full story can be read here.

I understand the whole "you break it, you buy it" principle is valid here, but that only goes so far.