CNN.com reports, in War costs could total $1.6 trillion by 2009, panel estimates,
…[the] Joint Economic Committee [of Congress]… estimated $1.3 trillion in war costs by the end of 2008 for Iraq, and the remainder [of the 1.6 trillion estimate] for Afghanistan…. The committee calculated the average cost of both wars for a family of four would be $20,900 from 2002 to 2008.
I can’t fathom $1.6 trillion dollars but I can well imagine how our family might put $20,900 to use, were it to drop into my lap tonight. But that would be kind of selfish, since this is, ostensibly, public money which is being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. So let’s try another way of visualizing it.
My sons attend a high school with 1,268 students. I will make a guess that that figure represents 1,000 families. If all of those families pooled their “war money,” we would have $20,900,000 to spend. What could we have done for our community with just shy of $21 million?
