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There are a lot of reasons why war is bad. There is this killing thing, there's the morality of invading another country -- there's a whole host of reasons.
But I'm an economists and I look at, well, money. And the bottom line is we can't afford this war.
How much would this thing cost? We were told a much lower figure:
White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was the exception to the rule, offering an "upper bound" estimate of $100 billion to $200 billion in a September 2002 interview with The Wall Street Journal. That figure raised eyebrows at the time, although Lindsey argued the cost was small, adding, "The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy."
First - how much has this whole thing costso far? According to this webpage, we're right at $428 billion. That's a large chunk of change. So much for that $100 - $200 billion estimate the White House distanced itself from. The website also let's you see how much it is costing your community.
According to MSNBC:
One thing is certain about the Iraq war: It has cost a lot more than advertised. In fact, the tab grows by at least $200 million each and every day.
$200 million/day. Let's think about that for a minute. Let's say the country works on a standard 8 hour day. That means that by 3:15 today (I'm writing this at 7:15 EST), the US will spend another $200 million on the war. So, by the time I'm looking at MLB.com to see what game to listen to tonight, the US will spend another $200 million.
Another estimate puts the cost at $2 billion a week:
A new congressional analysis shows the Iraq war is now costing taxpayers almost $2 billion a week -- nearly twice as much as in the first year of the conflict three years ago and 20 percent more than last year -- as the Pentagon spends more on establishing regional bases to support the extended deployment and scrambles to fix or replace equipment damaged in combat.
Also note the cost of the war is increasing.
But the total cost could be between $1 and $2 trillion:
U.S. direct spending on the war in Iraq already has surpassed the upper bound of Lindsey's upper bound, and most economists attribute billions more in indirect costs to the war effort. Even if the U.S. exits Iraq within another three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will likely by more than $400 billion, and one estimate puts the total economic impact at up to $2 trillion.
The above quoted figures include things like long-term care for wounded veterans, paying interest on all the debt we're floating to pay for this damn thing etc...
But here's the best part. According to the General Accounting Office, we don't have any idea how about half of the money we've appropriated has been spent.
GAO found numerous problems in DOD's processes for recording and reporting costs for GWOT, raising significant concerns about the overall reliability of DOD's reported cost data. As a result, neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing and details on how appropriated funds are being spent, or have historical data useful in considering future funding needs. On the basis of GAO's work, DOD is taking steps to improve its cost reporting. Factors affecting the reliability of DOD's reported costs include long-standing deficiencies in DOD's financial systems, the lack of a systematic process to ensure that data are correctly entered into those systems, inaccurately reported costs, and difficulties in properly categorizing costs. In at least one case, reported costs may be materially overstated. Specifically, DOD's reported obligations for mobilized Army reservists in fiscal year 2004 were based primarily on estimates rather than actual information and differed from related payroll information by as much as $2.1 billion, or 30 percent of the amount DOD reported in its cost report. In addition, GAO found inadvertent double counting in the Navy's and Marine Corps' portion of DOD's reported costs amounting to almost $1.8 billion from November 2004 through April 2005. Because it was not feasible to examine all reported costs and significant data reliability problems existed, GAO was not able to determine the extent that total costs were misstated. Further complicating the data reliability issue is the fact that DOD has not updated its policy to address GWOT spending. Instead, DOD is using its existing financial management regulation for funding contingency operations, although it was developed and structured to manage the costs of small-scale contingency operations. GAO has noted that specific provisions of the existing policy conflict with the needs of GWOT. One conflict concerns the use of supplemental funds for base support activities at home stations. DOD's financial management regulation administratively precludes such use, but military service officials have spent billions of dollars in supplemental funds on these activities. Some of this spending appears to directly support the war, but some does not. DOD is currently updating its regulation on the basis of GAO's work. While individual commands have taken steps to control costs and DOD policy generally advises its officials of their financial management responsibilities to ensure the prudent use of contingency funding, DOD has not established guidelines that would require all commands involved in GWOT to take steps to control costs and to keep DOD informed of those steps and their success. For example, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq has unilaterally set a 10 percent cost reduction target for fiscal year 2005 but the details are not widely known outside the command. With the growth in GWOT costs, there is a need to ensure that all commands seek to control costs, including the need to review and rationalize related requirements. Until the department establishes guidelines on cost controls and is routinely informed about the types of controls and their impact on costs, it cannot be sure that all that can be done to control costs is being done.
The above paragraph indicates the DOD is really screwing up when it comes to managing the cost of the war. There's a surprise. Considering how freely the US is spending money right now, why not increase the possibility of fraud.
Anyway -- I would love to give you a great moral argument about why this war is a bad thing. There are others who can do that.
I'm a money guy. And this thing is way too expensive to continue.
Here's an idea: Use the comments section to propose alternated spending ideas for $400 billion dollars.