For 2008, that’s more than the Departments of Labor, Interior, Treasury, Transportation, Agriculture, Justice, Energy, and NASA, Combined.
That’s 2.5 times what we spend on the Department of Education, 3.65 more than we spend on the VA, and four times what we spend on HUD.
We spend as much or more in one month in Iraq than we spend in an entire year on the Departments of Labor, the Interior, Treasury, or Transportation.
Stop the war and spend the money on Scientific Research,preferably including some for space exploration.
When we stop the war, the money not spent will go towards paying for it. We put the whole shebang on the credit card.
It’s an excellent return on investment for whichever company did the constructing.
If one is worried about the deficit then brain storming what else we could do with all the Iraq money seems like shooting yourself in the foot to me.
Personally, I don’t care if the occupation costs 500 million or 500 billion a year. I oppose it for other reasons.
Good! When the Iranians take it over, they’ll have to spend a fortune! Serves 'em right!
That’s what happens when you use slave labor. Quality control goes right to hell. No pride in workmanship, those people …
Which is not the whole country. And it’s a very wasteful means of stimulating the economy. I’m sure if we decided to literally burn that amount of money, the people running the furnaces would profit by it; that wouldn’t make it a good way to spend the money.
Come on now, Dave, this is bordering on offensive. I’m actually against UHC but one of these is an inconvenience and one has resulted in tens of thousands of senseless deaths. Cost schmost, show a little perspective.
I had a paper route in the early 80’s. I still remember picking up the papers one day and seeing a little blurb that the national debt had gone over 1 trillion dollars (story on page A7, or whatever). That was during the Reagan administration. I’m not sure, ultimately, how much credit or blame the president deserves for the deficit, but the only time since then that the budget was balanced was during the only democratic presidency.
The idea of fiscally reckless democrats will probably outlive me, true or not. As a great political satirist once said, the less you plan to do about something, the more you must talk about it.
And take heart, everyone; Iraq has a budget surplus
Fair point, but I was responding directly to the “Well, you spent money on this, so that justifies us spending money on that” theme of the OP.
I agree 100%
Yes, it is the number spent, total, for health care by Americans. Which would double the current budget for the entire U.S. government if they took it over. Pointing that out is a fair question IMO.
One sometimes has the impression that people think the overall cost of healthcare would become cheaper if it was universal.
Malpractice would go down- if the government runs health care, it runs doctors, and the government has to consent to be sued- but all those uninsured would be added to the cost paid by those currently paying. There’s no way it wouldn’t cost more for the average American, even if hidden as just “more taxes.” A lot more.
Actually that wasn’t the theme of the OP, which you still haven’t addressed yet.
How much is too much for conservatives to spend?
Come, now, it makes no sense to look only at the cost side of the ledger. The difference is, with UHC we would actually be getting something valuable in exchange for the money.
Out of context. 12 billion a month. Much of it goes to the contractors. If we don’t deal wlth the contractors we are not dealing with the problem. Your welcome.