What $87 Billion Buys - • What Else $87 Billion Will Buy

[dArKeR]

Instead of a war in Iraq, here’s what America could be getting for its money

It’s almost an abstract figure. President Bush says he wants $87 billion to fund the occupation in Iraq and limited operations in Afghanistan. But is that a lot when it comes to the pocket books of United States government?

ON THE ONE HAND, Bush’s tax cuts will cost the federal government close to $300 billion this year alone. On the other, $87 billion is more than the gross domestic product of most countries, more even than the combined assets of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. To try to bring some perspective to the number, NEWSWEEK has imagined what the federal government might do in other key policy areas if it had $87 billion lying around.
       
       HOMELAND SECURITY
       For $87 billion you could …
More than double the Department of Homeland Security’s 2004 budget
       or
Spend 22 times what Congress appropriated to cities and states in aide to first responders this year
       or
Spend almost 15 times what President Bush has proposed for bioterrorism preparedness funding nationwide
       — “911 does not ring at the statehouse; it rings at city hall,” said James Garner, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in a Sept. 17 statement.
“Cities are the first to respond in a crisis, but last in line for funds.”

http://msnbc.com/news/969195.asp?0cl=c1

Do you think some mainstream journalist get their ideas from the DU? The first day the $87 Bil. was announced I and others posted what else could have been done with this money. I and others have been posting other uses of money since the beginning of the butchering in Iraq too.

[hueyfreeman]

1. 87 billion can buy Freedom and Security

87 billion can buy Freedom and Security or we can save the money and " Cut and Run"

[RC]

2. Freedom and Security for whom, may I ask?

I also ask who will benefit from this $87 billion? You can bet it will not be the Iroqi people.

[hueyfreeman]

3. The Whole world

The Whole world benefits when there are fewer terror states.

[tsipple]

4. Agreed

Too bad we just created several more. Saudi Arabia now wants nukes. So does Iran. North Korea has them.

Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Conclusion? Better get your WMDs now, otherwise the United States will come invading. :crazy:

[dArKeR]

5. Unfortunately every knows the butching of Iraq and possibly

Afghanistan was wrong so every country can now see that the only way to protect themselves from the USA is to have nuclear or biological weapons. And maybe that's exactly what the United States Military Industrial Complex goal was!

[MasonJar]

6. But we don't

We do not have fewer because of Bush's two wars. The Taliban and the terrorists are back in Afghanistan and Iraq is now a drawing card for the terrorists. Just as so many of the world's people admonished, the Iraq invasion has made things much worse and has subsequently diminished our capability to protect ourselves and to serve the basic needs of US citizens. It is not our duty to scour the world for dictators and remove the ones with oil and leave the ones we like. This also holds true of duly elected leaders that do not fit our notion of a greed-friendly executive.(Venezuela comes to mind.)