Can You Spend $3 Trillion Better than Bush?

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/04/18/can-you-spend-3-trillion-better-than-bush/

by Mike Hall, Apr 18, 2008



It’s not easy spending $3 trillion. I tried (see below). But then again I wasn’t buying a quagmire in the Middle East. That price tag—$3 trillion—is what the Bush administration is spending on the war in Iraq, says Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.


The checks paid for with our taxpayers’ dollars that Bush is writing for the war means other checks are not in the mail—not for health care, rebuilding New Orleans or the nation’s infrastructure, education, job training, or maybe even lending a hand to homeowners trapped in the foreclosure crisis.


Just what would $3 trillion buy? It’s hard to imagine. Even though most of us will never see $1 million, we’ve got some idea just how much money that is and what it will buy.


The folks at Brave New Films, the Center for Corporate Policy, the True Majority and other progressive groups are giving you a chance to see just how much $3 trillion will buy and to find out if you can spend it better than President Bush.


As Stiglitz says:

Just counting the zeroes on the $3 trillion price tag of the Iraq War is enough to induce hyperventilation. But what does $3 trillion really mean? It’s difficult even to comprehend a number that big. Well, try filling your shopping cart with what the cost of the Iraq War could buy: health care for every American? A new home for every subprime borrower now facing foreclosure? An Ivy League university? You haven’t even gotten started.

The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree website looks like any other online shopping mall, with departments ranging from apparel and shoes to health and beauty and tools and industrial items. It’s chock full of goodies, including ending our dependence on foreign oil for $500 billion and a new national power grid for just $300 million.



Here’s how Bush’s $3 trillion spending spree breaks down, according to Stiglitz:

*

$526 billion—borrowed money poured into Iraq so far.
*

$615 billion—total interest costs for taxpayers.
*

$280 billion—to rebuild our military.
*

$590 billion—disability benefits and health care for Iraq veterans.
*

$1.5 trillion—estimated costs through 2017.


FULL story at link.

[Nitrogenica]

1. Well I'd use it to help PEOPLE IN NEED!!!

[IowaGirl]

2. I don't know, but it'd sure be fun trying....

[lpbk2713]

3. I'm not one to boast or brag ....

but I honestly tend to think I could probably do almost anything better than Shit-for-Brains.

[sammythecat]

4. Well, for a start, we could've taken just one of those trillions

and, considering Saddam's military was 350,000 strong in 2003, we could have given each soldier, in return for his resignation, $2,857,000. No war, and a bunch of happy co-operative Iraqi millionaires.

We'd still have $2,000,000,000,000 left over to blow on ourselves, and 4,000+ empty plots at Arlington. Bad news for the casket and prosthetic device manufacturers but good news all around for everybody else.

[chill_wind]

5. $19.9 billion in just my state of Pa alone, would have bought Pennsylvanians

4,920,673 People with Health Care for One Year OR

23,961,030 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year OR

436,682 Public Safety Officers for One year OR

303,540 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR

1,637,916 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR

1,049 New Elementary Schools OR

202,495 Affordable Housing Units OR

6,253,604 Children with Health Care for One Year OR

3,122,822 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR

315,809 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR

277,729 Port Container Inspectors for One year


http://www.nationalpriorities.org
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs?location_type=1&state=42&program=576&tradeoff_item_item=999&submit_tradeoffs=Get+Trade+Off

[colorado thinker]

7. Kind of makes you sick

when you start thinking about what could have been done . . .

[colorado thinker]

6. Gee, I don't know

A cure for breast cancer? A cure for childhood diabetes? Rebuilding our infrastructure? Paying our teachers? Rebuilding our manufacturing base? Alternative Energy? Could we put solar panels on every house in America for $3 trillion? Pay the people who care for the elderly a living wage?

I believe I could go on for days , , ,

[chill_wind]

8. Over 40 percent of our 2007 tax dollars went towards military spending, Education? 4 %.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/

It's mind numbing. We're a nation gone insane.