("Five Hundred BILLION Dollars!" - Dr. Evil)
I don't know about anybody else - but I am horrible with math. Always have been. Not just improper fractions and algebra. I can barely balance my check book.
Large numbers mean nothing to me.
If you're not swimming in millions - who even comprehends the actual meaning of the word BILLION?
So when large numbers are bandied about for the cost of this war - can we ever REALLY relate to them?
One Million. One Billion. One Trillion. One Gazillion...
What does it mean to us personally?
And exactly how much money has been squandered on Iraq?
Here's a very short and chilling calculation.
The most conservative estimate of the war cost to date - based on Congressional appropriations - is $358 billion and counting. Rapidly...
And that does NOT include the vast costs of the future medical care and support for over TWENTY THOUSAND soldiers and veterans wounded in the war - and their devastated families.
Neither does it account for the fact that the Iraq War is being deficit-financed and that we taxpayers will need to make additional interest payments on the national debt due to those deficits.
(Anyone here still remember the budget SURPLUS that a DEMOCRAT President left this nation in January 2001?!)
Even if Bush listened to his military commanders and/or the Iraq Study Group led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton and/or the 65% of the American nation who disapprove of this war - and he ended this war soon - the cost by the time the troops come home would certainly exceed FIVE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. And very probably much, much more.
Let's just assume FIVE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS.
Or put more simply - and more abstractly - HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS.
$500,000,000,000
What the hell IS that?
Well you can check out the excellent Cost Of War website for a look at how much this Iraq War costs in terms of under-funded programs for our children and elderly.
But for the benefit of our self-proclaimed, fiscally-responsible, conservative friends who worship at the shrine of the Me-Decade - let's look at how much it will mean to you PERSONALLY.
Based on the official US Census Bureau - there are over THREE HUNDRED MILLION people in America.
That means that this war will have cost $1.6 MILLION per person!
(I used a 1986 Casio pocket calculator to determine this fact.)
One Million, Six Hundred and Sixty Six Thousand, Six Hundred and Sixty Six Dollars. And - according to my calculator - Sixty SEVEN cents.
$1,666,666.67
No... wait a minute!
I dropped a few decimal points! (I warned you I'm lousy at math!) And the Casio was overloading with all those zeros!
(Fortunately a kind reader spotted the beta-version of this post and graciously confirmed to me how bad I was at mathematics.)
Phew! What a relief! It's only costing us $1,666 each. And 67¢.
Well - that's alright then I guess...
(Note: No abacuses - or abaci - were harmed In the making of this blog entry)