The Cost of War: What Every American Pays

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The $357 billion spent on the Iraq war directly affects the quality of life for all of us in the U.S.A. Just numbers? Not really. Consider these examples.

• Homeland Security:
  
  - Cost of the proposed southern border fence, a drop in the bucket at $53 billion.
  
  - Eight million police officers could have been hired.
  
  - Six million cargo inspectors for our sieve-like ports could have been employed.
 
• Education:
  - Over six million public schoolteachers could have taught for a year.
  
  - Over 47 million children could have attended Head Start for one year.
  
  - Over 17 million four-year scholarships could have been offered to college students at public universities.
• Health and Housing:
  - Over 214 million children could have had a year’s worth of health insurance. Over three million public housing units could have been built.
• Transportation:
  - Free gas for a year for every American driver.

Most of the numbers were provided by the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan advocacy group which educates the public on the effects of Federal tax and spending policies. Going to the NPP website will allow you to see their “Cost of War” counter, the effect the ever-rising cost of the Iraq war is having at your state and local levels, and what opportunities were lost. The numbers are based on Congressional appropriations.

Ken Pollack of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution has been quoted as saying: “One of the great tragedies of Iraq is that the administration has mismanaged this war so badly that it has wound up costing the taxpayer far more than it might have, had things been handled otherwise.” Some military sources estimate that the cost of the war could double. Speak up, folks.

Read more about the human cost of the Iraq war.

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Written by pajamadeen · Filed Under Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Iraq, terrorism 
Tagged: Afghanistan, cost of war, Iraq, Politics, President Bush, terrorism, terrorist attack