500 BILLION dollars.....

[kestrel91316]

that's what this frickin' "war" has cost us to date.

Your challenge, Constant DUers, is to find alternate ways of spending that same 500 BILLION dollars, and explain how much better off our nation and world would be if we had spent the money constructively.

Fire away.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. You don't need to worry your little head about that ...

George and Pickles are doing fine, thanks for your concern.

:hi:

[Clear Blue Sky]

2. I heard the figure $3 trillion mentioned today as the total cost.

[gasperc]

3. it was only supposed to cost $1.7 Billion

I know, because the TV box told me so in March 2003, clearly the decimal point or the comma is in the wrong place

[B Calm]

4. It's costs us far more than 500 billion.

Higher priced gas, higher inflation, and 4000 dead soldiers can be added to the cost too.

[Warpy]

5. Well, given that there are about 50,000 uninsured people

in this country, that would have given them all ten million dollars to pay for their healthcare.

TEN MILLION!

That's what this war is costing us. That's where our healthcare, our well kept highways and bridges, our parks and museums, and our social safety net has gone.

Bastards.

[kestrel91316]

9. Um, Warpy, I think there are a helluva lot more than

50,000 uninsured Americans. More like 50 million. I'm one of them.

[Warpy]

11. That's what trying to function on 3 hours' sleep

before surgery will do to math.

Yes, we'd all get ten thousand. That should be enough for basic health insurance or basic health care, depending on what we need more.

I've been uninsured for 20 years. Even though I can now afford it, no one will cover me. I would probably need to use it, you see.

For profit health insurance is for the healthy to feel safe and protected, it does nothing for the sick.

[blondie58]

6. heck, we could have given the money to some scientists and created

other ways to fuel our cars and broken our "addiction to oil" and probably had enough to repair our aging infrastructure.

[Squatch]

7. $500B is chump change.

It's cost a lot more than that, I can assure you.

[magellan]

8. As I've said in other posts I'd divide $200 billion of that among Americans

Equal shares for each household and a separate huge fund for the homeless. The balance (I was originally working off the $200 billion sunk into the financial markets last week) would go into r&d of alternative fuel sources.

I reckon that'd fix our economy in short order.

[Golden Raisin]

10. But the Republicans are the party

of "Fiscal Responsibility". :sarcasm: I would assume that $500 billion is probably too low.