Cost of Iraq War Theft to Americans-- Federal Budget Tradeoff figures.

[chill_wind]

Outrageous loss of life to Americans and Iraqis. Outrageous theft and loss to Americans (especially children, elderly poor) at home who need help the most.

And I'm not sure the 315+ billion figure is even fully up to date. Even so, it makes me ill. The death, the chaos, the lies, the waste, the theft. The shame.

Taxpayers in United States will pay $315.8 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

71,717,012 People Receiving Health Care or

5,472,330 Elementary School Teachers or

41,823,351 Head Start Places for Children or

185,783,623 Children Receiving Health Care or

2,843,180 Affordable Housing Units or

37,159 New Elementary Schools or

61,230,780 Scholarships for University Students or

5,441,915 Music and Arts Teachers or

7,114,877 Public Safety Officers or

558,642,585 Homes with Renewable Electricity or

4,946,324 Port Container Inspectors

http://database.nationalpriorities.org/cgi-bin/WebObjec...

Use the dropdown forms to see what the costs and tradeoffs are for your own state.
Print it out and send it to your local papers?

[BOSSHOG]

1. Ask any run of the mill "conservative"

who gets their information from limbaugh and faux. I bet they can quote cheney for you when he said - "deficits don't matter, reagan proved it." Not only unwashed but uneducated.

[Spearman87]

2. Help. What does this war cost as a percentage of our

total budget?

And does anybody happen to know what has been the percentage for other major conflicts the US has been involved in?

[chill_wind]

3. Good question. OVERALL mil spending is approx 20%, per this source.

"Military spending consumes 26 cents out of every individual income tax dollar. It makes up about 20% of total federal spending and over half of the discretionary budget."

http://database.nationalpriorities.org/cgi-bin/WebObjec...



http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_cont...

[Spearman87]

5. Ok, if the budget for the military was 455 billion

And that was 20% of our budget (per the pie chart), then the 315 billion figure given for Iraq is about 14% of the budget. That percentage is much bigger than I realized. Thanks for the info.

[chill_wind]

4. "Cost of selected wars" Bar graph.

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_cont...

edit to add these Cost of Iraq figures:

STATE CITY/COUNTY/OTHER COST OF IRAQ WAR
United States Entire U.S. $315.8 billion
United States Per Household $2,819
United States Per Person $1,065
United States Per Taxpayer $2,379
United States Per Hour $10.18 million
United States Per Day $244 million

more-- see your own state and even more local costs here: http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_cont...

[chill_wind]

6. Interactive tax graph. Plug in your own 2005 taxes paid.

See how the government spent your last year's taxes. Eye-popping!!

http://nationalpriorities.org/auxiliary/interactivetaxc...

[TahitiNut]

7. If we kill 318,000 Iraqis ...

... that's only $1 million per head. I guess it's better than writing each one a check, huh?