Terry Neal: "The $87 Billion Question"

[ameriphile]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50631-2003Sep9.html


Here's the part that really blew me away:

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In The Washington Post on Tuesday, reporter Jonathan Weisman compared the cost of the latest request to other government spending, noting that the $87 billion request is nearly triple the amount the federal government plans to spend on elementary and secondary education this year, and more than twice as much as the budget for homeland security.

Weisman, using Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus as a source, also noted that the $166 billion that has been spent or requested exceeds "the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined" and "approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I."

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