How would YOU use the money that funds the Iraq war?

[babylonsister]

Run time: 01:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GADOyztCoSA   Posted on YouTube: January 25, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 18, 2008 By DU Member: babylonsister Views on DU: 329

 

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Pay my bills?

Seriously: health care, job training and creation, affordable housing, assistance to the victims of preditory lenders, prosecution of preditory lenders, development of alternative energy, other measures to fight global warming, aid to local schools (under local control; no more Child Left Behind) and prosecution of members of the late US regime.

[nichomachus]

2. I'd fix the country

Boston's "Big Dig" project -- much ridiculed and derided by the very Republicans who were skimming money with shoddy workmanship and materials -- was the largest public works project in the history of the US.

Besides being absolutely necessary, it provided tremendous benefits for Boston. First, it created thousands of well-paying jobs that went on for 15 years. The money paid to those workers was put back into the community in various ways, creating even more jobs.

At the end, Boston was a revitalized city. The downtown, once dominated by a hulking, rotting, elevated highway and massive traffic jams, is now much more open and traffic has been routed underground. New hotels and businesses have opened, creating even more jobs. There is now green space where there was rusted structural steel, dank shadows, and choking auto exhaust.

The cost of the project was $14 billion. If we could take the $3 trillion wasted on Iraq to kill and injure innocent people and put it to infrastructure repair in the US, we could have about 250 Big Dig-type projects, creating millions of good-paying jobs and revitalizing cities all over the US.