That’s $4,681 per household, $1,721 per person, $341.4 million per day.
Taxpayers in Charlottesville, Virginia will pay $75.1 million for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
490 Affordable Housing Units
OR
1,094 Elementary School Teachers for One Year
OR
10,478 Head Start Places for Children for One Year
OR
9,350 Scholarships for University Students for One Year
OR
21,036 People with Health Care for One Year
These are the new numbers from the National Priorities Project ( http://www.nationalpriorities.org ). So, these numbers need to be multiplied by about 10 to give you the true cost as calculated by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz to include interest, rising price of oil, care for injured veterans, etc. And, of course, we aren’t actually spending this money, we’re borrowing it and expecting our kids and grandkids to pay it. Hence the need to tell people how much it is!