re:["We can spend over a trillion dollars to try to bring freedom to a region of the world that been at war for the last 2,000 years and has no value for human life, but we can’t afford to take care of our senior citizens and need to cheat them out of their social security by creating false CPI numbers to continue the characids."]
Sad, and true.
What are we going to end up spending in Iraq?
From the non partisan CBO (congressional budgeting office:
====================================================================== "The U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq."
As of March 2008, over $500 Billion has already been spent in Iraq.
From Wikipedia:
"As the total passed 450 Billion dollars, the cost for the Iraq war reached approximately $1500.usd per person in the United States.[8] If the Iraq war were to wind up costing 1.9 trillion dollars, the cost would be over 4.2 times higher ($6,300 per United States citizen.) This would put the expense at $25,000 for an average family of four ( or $32,000 per family if Afghanistan is included.)
As a comparison, with this money he estimates that one could have built 8 million houses, paid 15 million teachers, paid for the child care of 530 million kids, paid for the scholarship of 43 million students, offered social safety net during 50 years to Americans."
======================================================================
Instead, we have enriched the Arab Oil States, terrorist states included, and we have rebuilt, enriched, emboldened and empowered a new Russia.
How much alternative energy infrastructure could $2.4 Trillion have financed?
We could have funded and accelerated the development of the Canadian oil sands, and had about $2 Trillion left over for alternative energy.
Eisenhower tried to warn us then...just as Ron Paul is warning us now.
""In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
youtube.com (video of his farewell address and warning about the military-industrial-defense complex)
America didn't listen then...
Tick tock,
S.O.T.B. |