Posted by Liberal on March 6, 2011, 1:38 pm, in reply to "Re: bob..."
so the war in iraq, and the rebuilding of iraq - only cost us 5 billion says US watchdog?!
that is just laughable...and i am most certain you are miquoting the number or that number is wrong.
we spent more than 5 billion (7 to be more precise) in just 1 month in 2009 - and in 2008 over 10 billion a month (12 to be more precise)...and that is beside the cost for soldiers, who cost us about 300-400k a year per soldier.
war appropriations are not a part of the federal budget and are beside the annual money allotted to the military - a number which is roughly 40-50% of the entire budget when all are added...
ie - the department of energy controls the nuclear weapons program for the united states and is a part of their budget and NOT considered a part of the defense budget.
the VA pie slice is a different category than the defense - yet it is the pension or "entitlements" of our soldiers.
i could go on and on - our country and our government is trying to mislead us - they try to play down the numbers and try to warp or distort them so to not alarm the people of the epic costs of our empire.
granted - our soldiers won the fight - they did their job and did it well. but as much as we paid them i would hope they would win the fight.
as i have said numerous times before - if we dedicated our budget and aimed our tax dollars at education rather than war - imagine what we could do as a nation.