Saturday, November 17, 2007

What could we have done with the Money of illegal war and occupation of Iraq?!

GOD bless you all. Another new email got my attention. It shows what we could have done - or still do - with the money the Bush administration has spent so far on the illegal war and occupation of Iraq. With the funding they are currently trying to get from congress, the total cost would rise to $611.5 billion, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group. And here is what we could have had:

Almost 18 months' worth of free gas for everyone

US drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the United States, for about 530 days.

More than a year of Medicare benefits for everyone

In fiscal 2008, Medicare benefits will total $454 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation summary. The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health benefit program for poor children.

A real war on poverty

According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth. At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.

Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road

With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

If you would like to see this and more with nice pictures, please click here.

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