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News :: Children : Economy : Education : Elections & Legislation : Environment : Government Secrecy : Health : Housing : International Relations : Iraq : Peace : Political-Economy : Regime |
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National, State and Local Levels: Cost of Iraq War Rises for Taxpayers |
Current rating: 0 |
by National Priorities Project
(No verified email address) |
22 Feb 2006
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So far, the war has cost Urbana $30.9 million and Champaign $67.6 million. Interesting how the entire cost of the proposal to issue bonds to rebuild Champaigns School's infrastructure is almost exactly what the war has cost that community already. |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FEBRUARY 21, 2006
2:51 PM
CONTACT: National Priorities Project
413.584.9556
Cost of Iraq War Rises for Taxpayers
NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts - February 21 - The administration submitted to Congress a $72.4 billion request for additional war-related funding last week. The National Priorities Project (NPP) concluded that total spending on the Iraq War will rise to more than $315 billion.
If the request is approved, NPP estimates that the request will add another $61 billion in funding for the Iraq War, and $10 billion for the war in Afghanistan. Other funding included in the request is $900 million for international assistance and peacekeeping activities in parts of Africa and Pakistan.
"As the national debate increases about the merits of the Iraq War, the public needs to know the enormous human and financial costs, " said Greg Speeter, executive director of National Priorities Project.
Number of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded by state is also available in the new NPP publication, Cost of Iraq War Rises at: www.nationalpriorities.org/iraqwarcost.
The National Priorities Project is a national, non-partisan organization that illustrates the impact of federal policies on local communities.
Click on the map below for a state publication. Tables provide additional information about the supplemental.
Table 1: Department of Defense Funding by Category
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=193&Itemid=61
Table 2: Non-Department of Defense, Iraq
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=194&Itemid=61
Table 3: Non-Department of Defense, Afghanistan
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=195&Itemid=61
Table 4: Non-Department of Defense, Other than Iraq or Afghanistan
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=196&Itemid=61
For town, city and county numbers, go to: Local Costs of the Iraq War
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=61 |
See also:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/
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Related stories on this site:
What Happened To My Country?
TOWN HALL MEETING
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This work licensed under a
Creative Commons license |
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One by One, Towns are Urging Peace |
by Karen Dolan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Feb 2006
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Polls show that the American people are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the war in Iraq and want our beloved troops to come home as soon as possible. Nearly 80 communities nationwide have put these sentiments in city and town council resolutions that call for bringing our sons and daughters home from a war that has become a deadly quagmire and an occupation as unpopular in Iraq as in the United States.
In September, the cities of Chicago and Philadelphia passed resolutions urging the cessation of combat operations in Iraq. They cited the lives lost and the monetary cost to their communities. In November, the city of Baltimore unanimously passed a resolution “urging President Bush and the United States Congress to commence a humane, orderly, immediate withdrawal of United States military personnel and bases from Iraq.” This resolution also cited the deaths of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilian men, women and children.
In December, the smaller town of Wilkinsburg passed a resolution supporting neighboring 12th District Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha’s call for U.S. troops to come home from Iraq in six months. This resolution urged Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), to stand with Murtha, a fellow Democrat. With its passage, Wilkinsburg supported its citizens, soldiers, Murtha and the nation. Local legislators asserted their place in a global society by voting for peace.
These cities and towns are leaders in the growing trend of citizens recognizing the power of their local communities in participating in a global society.
The monetary cost to us as a nation is $252 billion thus far with $120 billion more in the works. According to the research institute National Priorities Project, our nation could instead have provided over 57 million Americans with health care, or 2 million affordable housing units. We could have equipped half a million U.S. homes with renewable energy. Fifty million students could have received university scholarships.
The costs of this war hit us where we live, who we are as families, communities and as a nation. As the saying goes: "All politics is local." That has never been truer than today in a world virtually without borders and in a world where what happens “over there” has direct implications for what happens over here.
This hopeful trend of increasing civic participation at the local level showed up strongly in the months leading up to the invasion in Iraq. From December 2002 until the March 2003 invasion, 170 city councils, representing over 50 million Americans, passed city, town and county resolutions that decried the administration’s path of pursuing “pre-emptive,” unilateral war. These resolutions protested the imminent war’s launch, which came without the consent of the United Nations Security Council and without allowing the U.N. Weapons Inspectors to finish their job as they requested to be permitted to do.
With over 2,250 U.S. soldiers killed and estimates of at least 100,000 innocent Iraqi citizens dead, Americans are again using the civic outlet most accessible and most willing to listen—City Hall—to make their voices heard and call on the federal government to bring the troops home.
Citizens of our towns and cities have sons and daughters, mothers and fathers over there. They have sons and daughters, mothers and fathers buried in the ground over here. They have schools that need fixing, they have health clinics that need funding. They have a conscience and they have a voice.
Karen Dolan is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C., She also directs the Cities for Progress project there.
Copyright 2006 MinutemanMedia.org
http://www.MinutemanMedia.org
http://www.citiesforprogress.org |
