What $1.2 trillion can buy.
This is a summary of
David Leonhardt's piece in today's New York Times. He didn't provide numbers for everything, but the case is compelling. Thanks to
Moira for pointing out this article.
| Option A: |
| Doubled funding for the National Cancer Institute |
$6 billion/year |
| Treatment for every American with unmanaged heart disease or diabetes |
$50 billion/year |
| Universal preschool for 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds |
$35 billion/year |
|
| Total |
$91 billion/year |
| For ten years | |
$910 billion |
| Additional funding needed to save 10 million more lives in the next ten years of immunization campaigns in the 72 poorest countries | |
$15 billion |
| |
| Funding to stop the Taliban in Afghanistan |
$10 billion/year |
| 9/11 Commission recommendations for cargo screening and anti-nuclear-proliferation measures |
$10 billion/year |
| Reconstruction funds for New Orleans |
| (unspecified) |
| Peacekeeping force in Darfur |
| (unspecified) |
| Option B: |
| Military operations in Iraq |
$120 billion/year |
| For the entire course of the war | |
$700 billion |
| |
| One quarter of the rise in oil prices (the war's estimated contribution) | |
$150 billion |
| Replacing hardware used in Iraq and restoring the military | |
$100 billion |
| Veterans' medical care and disability payments | |
$250 billion |
|
| Invasion and occupation of Iraq | |
$1200 billion |
The $1.2 trillion estimate comes from
Wallsten and Kosec
(their site also has an interactive estimation tool
that lets you adjust the assumptions they made to come up with your own estimate).
Another well-known estimate puts the cost of the war at over $2 trillion, which includes an estimate of the economic value of the injuries and lives lost.
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zestyping) wrote,
