From the Huffington Post:
If the Bush administration succeeds in its latest request for funding for the war in
The amount got us wondering: What would $611 billion buy?
A real war on poverty
According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.
At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.
More than a year's worth of Medicare benefits for everyone
In fiscal 2008, Medicare benefits will total $454 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation summary. The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health benefit program for poor children.
Nearly 14 million years' worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard
At published rates for this year, $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free rides for a year at Harvard University.
Tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts-Boston could be paid for over 53 million years.
Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road
With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in
TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the
Almost 18 months' worth of free gas for everyone
US drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the
Nearly 4,000 Ultra Expensive High Schools
The most expensive high schools (at around 154 million) could be replicated almost 4,000 times using the money spent on the war.
We lost the war on poverty and we haven't declared a war on the others. After all, we're all veterans of these potential wars! Write your spineless representative and tell it to support the creation of a war on all of these things. They can be heroes! Feh!
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