“Bacon” a drop in the bucket compared with Iraq
A few days ago, we told you a bit about all the earmarks local lawmakers are bringing in (and bragging about, of course).  If you recall, Slaughter, Reynolds, Walsh, and Kuhl each brought in between $10 million and $36 million a piece in 2007.  In total, the four brought in $89 million dollars. That sounds like a lot, right? Well, it’s not compared with the cost of the Iraq war. Recall that Jeremy Moule of the City Paper estimated that the Iraq war has cost taxpayers from the four districts about $5 billion dollars since 2003. Even if multiply the earmark numbers for 2007 by 5 to account for the five years of Iraq war funding we’ve had so far, here’s the comparison:
Iraq: $5 billion
Earmarks: less than half of one billion
Or to put in the form of ratios:
Iraq: 10
Earmarks: 1
You may also recall that The Decider is requesting about $200 billion for Iraq in 2008 alone. That somes to about just under $2 billion for the local Congressional districts in 2008 alone. As wasteful as we might think the Renaissance Square project is, Iraq will cost ten times as much — just for the local area — in 2008 alone. By the time 2008 spending is factored in, the local Congressional districts will have spent $7 billion on Iraq — that’s 35 Ren Squares.
Related posts:
The National Priorities Project has a nice calculator set up where you can break it down by state and by county…and further by type:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html
The figures are staggering - absolutely staggering.
Thanks for the link!