Think Of What You Could Do...
with the money.
Just noticed this Cost of War website that shows Humboldt County taxpayers paying around $376,546,551 to finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Arcata is the only local city listed. They spent around $35,415,004 of that.
No mention of how much we've spent on our attack on Libya.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:18 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
That seems like a lot of money. Or is it?
$2,800 for every Humboldtian is what this pencils out to. That doesn't even buy a cruise missle in today's economy. And with the price of gas nowadays, this doesn't even rate as a meaningful spoil of war, now does it?
On the other hand, this kind of cold cash could sure employ a lot of teachers-- about 6,275 of them. Yet, on a different hand, Riverside just spent $105 million building a new high school they can't afford. It sits empty and mothballed because they can't afford to open and staff it.
Of course, this kind of dough, $376,546,551, could buy 658 gallons of gas for everyone here. That's enough to get everyone across the US and back-- twice over. And pay for insurance. Imagine if we carpooled.
Or, it could buy 94 million Happy Meals, or 740 for for each Humboldt resident. Thta's a lot of calories. Or any of the 47 million pies of your choice from the local Marie Callender's during their special $7.99 sale this month. That would be about 340 pies per county resident. They'd have to add another shift and factor in some overtime to meet demand, of course.
And you'd still have the choice of your flavor or fruit, too.
Gosh, we have some strange fiscal priorities going on here in this country.
That would be a lot of our shitty roads fixed.
That seems like a lot of money. Or is it?
On National Public Radio last night they brought up the fact that the cost of the wars is only 17% of the total cost of our military- industrial complex. Having a large military with all its support systems costs a lot of money without a shot being fired.
Post a Comment
<< Home