Posted on 12/27/2007 7:27:57 PM PST by canuck_conservative
The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism -- nearly $15 billion a month -- came last week from one of the Senate's leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. "This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army spending $4.2 billion of that every month," Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18. His remarks came in support of adding $70 billion to the omnibus fiscal 2008 spending legislation to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, as well as counterterrorism activities, for the six months from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 31 of next year. While most of the public focus has been on the political fight over troop levels, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported this month that the Bush administration's request for the 2008 fiscal year of $189.3 billion for Defense Department operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and worldwide counterterrorism activities was 20 percent higher than for fiscal 2007 and 60 percent higher than for fiscal 2006. Pentagon spokesmen would not comment last week on Stevens's figure but said their latest estimate for monthly spending for Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism was $11.7 billion as of Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They should adjust 1944 for inflation and then get back to us.
Considering the alternative of not taking the fight to the enemy, I say it is money well spent.
Cost to benefit Chicken feed compared to the “earmarks”.
If you don’t put in your buck-oh-five, who will?
What was the cost of the Twin Towers? What about the financial potential of 3,000 human beings, as long as we’re talking about how much things cost?
Mandatory spending: $1.527 trillion (+4.2%)
$608 billion (+4.5%) - Social Security
$386 billion (+5.2%) - Medicare
$209 billion (+5.6%) - Medicaid and SCHIP
$324.0 billion (+1.8%) - Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
Discretionary spending: $1.114 trillion (+3.1%)
$481.4 billion (+12.1%) - United States Department of Defense
$145.2 billion (+45.8%) - Global War on Terror
$69.3 billion (+0.3%) - Health and Human Services
$56.0 billion (+0.0%) - United States Department of Education
$39.4 billion (+18.7%) - United States Department of Veterans Affairs
$35.2 billion (+1.4%) - US Department of Housing and Urban Development
$35.0 billion (+22.0%) - State and Other International Programs
$34.3 billion (+7.2%) - Department of Homeland Security
$24.3 billion (+6.6%) - Energy
$20.2 billion (+4.1%) - Administration of justice
$20.2 billion (+3.1%) - Department of Agriculture
$17.3 billion (+6.8%) - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$12.1 billion (+13.1%) - Department of Transportation
$12.1 billion (+6.1%) - Department of Treasury
$10.6 billion (+2.9%) - United States Department of the Interior
$10.6 billion (-9.4%) - United States Department of Labor
$51.8 billion (+9.7%) - Other On-budget Discretionary Spending
$39.0 billion - Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending
Net interest on debt: $261 billion (+9.2%)
The Iraq war and the Afghanistan war are not part of the defense budget; they are appropriations.
how about ground zero sitting dormant for 7 years? how much money has that cost us?
gosh, if we weren’t spending $15 b per month on
the war on terrorism, we could be spending it
on building a moat around new orleans and
giving folks mercedes.
That was the Bush 2008 proposed budget.
how it all worked out????
Well, we spent 50% of annual GNP every year for four years. We have spent about 5% of annual GDP every year for about 6 years. Not to mention the body count during WWII was 400,000 over 4 years vs just over 4,000 dead over 6 years for the War on Terror.
Can’t respond to your thread? You sure like to tell us how we should vote for Ron Paul from your chair in Canada.
And how long is this going to go on?
Iraq still isn’t stable, neither is Afghanistan - and no end to this crap in sight.
At $180 billion every year, how long before the US goes effectively bankrupt?
And what goes it say about the enemy - yeah, those raghead camel-jockeys that we love to mock - that they can hold off what, 40,000 well-fed, well-armed, well-provisioned Western troops in Afghanistan?
It’s been over 6 years now - and Bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and al-Zarkawi STILL aren’t dead/captured. Why?!
The only reason that Ted Stevens is complaining is that he hasn’t yet figured out a way to stuff more of it into his pocket. Hope he ends up sharing a cell with Congressman “Cold Cash” Jefferson.
You're in "good" company...Osama agrees with you. As he pointed out back in 2004, he spent $500,000 on 9/11 and has cost us hundreds of billions.
I'd much rather we have gone into a war mode and done things right, rather than having the American public so divorced from the war. I'm eager to see what happens in 2008, after the Sadr ceasefire expires, etc. I hope we find that it was all worth it.
You defend Paul anytime you are on a Paul thread.
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