The National Priorities Project has a real eye-opening website that calculates the cost of the War in Iraq and them compares it to what we could do with that money.
As a resident of California, here's what they say we could be doing:
Taxpayers in California will pay $40.3 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
- 16,733,296 People with Health Care or
- 627,551 Elementary School Teachers or
- 4,767,634 Head Start Places for Children or
- 25,168,314 Children with Health Care or
- 235,246 Affordable Housing Units or
- 4,390 New Elementary Schools or
- 7,685,109 Scholarships for University Students or
- 616,017 Music and Arts Teachers or
- 741,482 Public Safety Officers or
- 117,140,845 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
- 601,790 Port Container Inspectors
Go check out what the trade-offs are for your state.