The Price of War

In our last posting, we listed the human cost of the Iraq war. Today, it's time to look at the financial toll this is taking on the American economy.

The price tag for the war is approaching $500 billion, almost 10 times what we were led to belive that this elimination of WMD's would cost.

Larry Lindsay, President Bush's first economic policy adviser was fired after he reported the war in Iraq could cost more than $100 billion. At that time, the official White House line was this war would be a bargain at $50 billion.

Paul Wolfowitz, now in a whole different scandal at the World Bank, actually said that the war would pay for itself.

So what could we do in peaceful efforts with the half-trillion we've already spent on installing democracy in the Middle East?

We could have fixed Social Security for the next 75 years.

We could have doubled the entire world's foreign aid to developing countries.

Think of what infrastructure in good old America could look like with that big of cash infusion, or the kind of graduates our education system could be turning out.