This is an interesting article:
The current costs of the Afghan and Iraq Wars have been reported at $191 Billion. Divide that by the current population in the United States 294,000,000 and that comes to $650 a person. About $2600 for a family of 4. The Bush Administration is going to ask for an additional $50-85 Billion to cover expense for one more fiscal year.Let's assume they ask for another $70 Billion. That would bring the total to $261,000,000,000. Divide that by the population (294,000,000) and you get...$887.75 per person, or $3551 for a family of four.
It is important to note that the money being spent on the war is being directly added to the record $7.2 Trillion (That is $7,200,000,000,000) National Debt as there are not enough revenues coming into the goverment to pay for the costs. Divide the $7.2 Trillion national debt, but the 294,000,000 residents of the United States and you have $24,490 per resident, or $97,960 for a family of four.
Just to be clear on the amount that Bush has added to the national debt during his presidency. Here are some further statistics. Bush was inaugurated on January 20th, 2001. At that time the National Debt was $5,706,174,969,873.86
The National Debt as of 6/7/2004 is $7,212,924,994,568.87
That means in just 3 short years Bush has increased the national debt $1,506,750,024,695.01 a 26.5% increase. To bring it home, Bush has added $5125 per person to the national debt, and for our happy little family of four? That is $20,500.
The national debt is ultimately the responsibility of the taxpayers. While defense contractors make billions and billions on war, the average person gets the bill.
For links to sources, visit the article itself. What astounds me the most about the cost of the war is that war profiteers are getting rich off of those dollars (interesting: "More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush -- a little over $500,000 -- than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.") American taxpayers are getting ripped off by companies like Halliburton who are not only being rewarded by this administration for their fraudulent pasts, but have no qualms about continuing their nefarious price gouging policies. What arrogance. And while they get rich, we get poorer. But that's just the way this administration works I guess. It's big business baby.
Posted by Maria at June 9, 2004 11:13 AM