Here's what the cost of the war, thus far, would buy.

[MGD]

This is inspired by Bob Geiger's thread "Here's What a Higher Minimum Wage Will Buy" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2966931
It's also inspired by a book entitled "What Kinds of Guns Are They Buying for Your Butter? A Beginner's Guide to Defense, Weaponry, and Military Spending" written by Tobias, Sheila; Goudinoff, Peter; Leader, Stefan; Leader, Shelah; Gordon, J. E.

I'm sure many of us have seen this National Priorities web site: http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html plenty of times as have I but it still never ceases to amaze me. It is especially amazing in light of the administration's willingness to cut taxes for the wealthy while resisting an increase in the minimum wage for the nation's poorest while simultaneously having no problem using the middle class as a credit card to fund the war. So, here it is:

The War In Iraq Costs

$342,324,952,442

Instead, we could have paid for
45,341,053
children to attend a year of Head Start.

The War In Iraq Costs

$342,325,046,887

Instead, we could have insured
204,985,058
children for one year.


The War In Iraq Costs

$342,325,114,679

Instead, we could have provided
16,595,167
students four-year scholarships at public universities.

The War In Iraq Costs

$342,325,165,615

Instead, we could have built
3,082,316
additional housing units.

The War In Iraq Costs

$342,325,235,443

Instead, we could have hired
5,932,537
additional public school teachers for one year.

We could buy 13,693,000 new cars at $25,0000 a piece.
We could buy 171,162,582 computer systems at $2000 a piece.
At $1000 each, we could give every single American a computer and still had roughly 42,000,000 computers left over.
We could buy 3,423,252 houses at $100,000 each.
We could have purchased 136,930,094,200 gallons of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon
We could have given 300,000,000 Americans a check for $1141.00
We could have hired 1,369,300 PhD research scientists at $125,000 for two years