PLEASE READ
So, I did a little internet search on how much the war was costing. I looked at about a million websites(they all had different numbers but they were pretty much the same, if it was a trust worthy site). I also, did my best to make sure they weren't numbers posted by crack pots trying to make everyone hate the war as much as they do. Then, I decided to find out how much third world debt was, which was a bit harder, but I found some very interesting numbers.
(Its long but worth reading)
In 2003, our dear President asked for about 87 billion dollars to continue the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. At that point the united states had already dedicated about 315 billion toward the war.($87 billion was more than all of the states' current budget deficits, combined. $87 billion was more than twice the amount we were spending on Homeland Security.)$87 billion, was submitted in September 2003 and passed Congress in November 2003. The final allocation amounted to $87.5 billion, of which $70.6 billion was for Iraq.
May 2004 a Budget Amendment: $25 Emergency Reserve Fund (Department of Defense - Iraq Freedom Fund) was made and was passed by Congress as part of the Department of Defense appropriations bill in July 2004. Based on Iraq War spending, of the $25 billion appropriated, about $21.5 billion was for the war in Iraq.
In February of 2005 a Emergency Supplemental (various agencies): for Ongoing Military Operations in the War on Terror; Reconstruction Activities in Afghanistan; Tsunami Relief and Reconstruction; and Other Purposes -was made and passed by Congress in April 2005. The final allocation amounted to $82 billion, of which about $58 billion was for the Iraq War.
So far we have spent around 320-340 billion dollars!!
The Department of Defense (DOD) estimates its “burn rate” of MONTHLY expenses at $6.4 billion in Iraq and $1.3 billion in Afghanistan. CRS points out that DOD did not include the cost of replacing worn out equipment and upgrades to facilities in theater. Adding those and a few other costs calculates to a monthly “burn rate” of $8.1 billion in Iraq; $1.6 billion in Afghanistan, and a total burn rate of $9.9 billion per month.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has made projections for possible future costs. That agency projects total additional costs of $371 billion for the years 2007 to 2016, making a grand total of $811 billion. (This CBO estimate assumes an almost immediate downturn in annual war costs; however, it is questionable whether we have crossed that peak.)
Now, if you wanted something to compare those number to, say, world hunger and third world debt...
Annual Cost of Improving the World
$19 billion: Eliminates starvation and malnutrition globally.
$12 billion: Provides education for every kid on earth.
$15 billion: Provides access to water and sanitation.
$23 billion: Reverses the spread of AIDS and Malaria.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003 estimates that over 800 million people worldwide are hungry and undernourished. The FAO has also stated that an annual increase of $24 billion in anti-hunger efforts would reduce world hunger by half (to 400 million people) by 2015.
In remarks to the World Bank on November 20, 2003, Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of UNAIDS, spoke of the need for "a minimum $10 billion needed annually to mount an effective, comprehensive response in low- and middle-income countries." In reporting to the UN General Assembly in September, 2003, on the proceedings of the high-level interactive panel on HIV/AIDS, Secretary-General Kofi Annan also spoke of the "$10 billion required annually by 2005 to stem the tide of AIDS."
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has estimated the additional monies needed to immunize every child in the developing world at $2.808 billion annually. The report (Table 8) calculates that 3 million children die annually from vaccine preventable diseases. To account for inflation and provide a margin for error, the Cost of War calculator uses a figure of $3 billion to calculate the number of years that the war in Iraq could pay for the immunization of all children in the developing world
We could easily help feed the world for years(as our government should).
Sadly, the major issue is debt.
Many developing countries borrowed heavily in the late 1970's anticipating the continuance of low real interest rates on loans. Some of these countries now, in an effort to service their debt, spend more money on repayments than health and education. For example, Tanzania continues to spend as much on servicing its debt than it does on education, while under half its primary school aged children are enrolled at school and one third of them are malnourished. Bolivia pays $240 million annually in debt repayments while 60% of the population have no access to basic sanitation and one third have no access to safe drinking water. Meanwhile UNICEF estimates that 13 children die each minute as a result of the impact of Third World debt.
The foreign debts of developing nations are growing at an uncontrollable and unserviceable rate. For all Third World countries debts have risen from $610 billion in 1980 to $2.3 trillion in 1997. This means an annual average increase of 8.2%. Now, over the same period of time the average annual economic growth of these same nations has risen by 5%. Statistics like these demonstrate a debt growth in excess of economic growth, reducing the ability of nations to pay back debt.
As you can see third world debt is huge, something that won't be fixed over night, unlike other things. Is it just me, or should we be spending hundred of billions of dollars on something else?