• Provide health insurance coverage to 344,500 working Americans to give them a break from the rising cost of coverage.
• Provide health insurance coverage for one year to 380,900 uninsured children in America.
• Employ 3,597 additional registered nurses for one year.
• Provide unemployment benefits for almost 722,000 unemployed Americans for one week.
• Fund Social Security retirement benefits for one day for over 6.75 million Americans.
• Pay for an increase of $3.34 per hour in the wages of every minimum wage worker in the country.
• Provide paid sick leave to half a million workers for an entire year.
• Pay for one year's gasoline consumption for 97,500 Americans, even at today's elevated prices.
• Feed all of the starving children in the world today almost four and a half times over.
• Vaccinate three-quarters of the children in Africa for measles and give millions a lifetime protection from the disease.
• Build 5,571 AIDS clinics in Africa.
• Provide 650,000 women in Africa living with HIV/AIDS antiretroviral treatment for one year to extend their lives and improve the lives of their children.
(Note: these figures were based on an estimate of $195 million per day being spent on the Iraq War. If the Congressional Research Service's recent estimate of $10 billion per month is correct, we are spending $330 million each and every day to fight Mr. Bush's War.)
As bad as this may sound, some leading economists believe the current estimates do not even come close to predicting the true cost of Mr. Bush's War. According to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School, the Congressional Research Service estimate is "only the tip of a very deep iceberg." (quoted by Matthew Yglesias, The American Prospect, 7/5/06) They predict the real cost of Mr. Bush's War will be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion--10 times what has been previously predicted. (Their study is available here.
• "[Their] study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war." -- Jamie Wilson, The Guardian, 1/7/06
In their attempt to consider the "real" cost of the war, they have even placed a price on the priceless:
Mick Youther is an American citizen, an independent voter, a veteran, a parent, a Christian, a scientist, a writer, and all-around nice guy who has been aroused from a comfortable apathy by the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush Administration.
Mick, Once again you take my breath away with your words in your articles, My son is home from his 3rd Deployment in Iraq, and is now discharged (THANKGOD) BUT , We still have so many of "Our" Children,and Our Men & Women over there in harms way & How many innocent Iraqi's??? When will it be ENOUGH ?? Wake up America !!!!
Keep up the great work, Somehow maybe your words will reach someone who can stop this INSANITY !!!!
by
marinemom (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, July 22, 2006 at 8:56:36 PM
1 comments
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