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Cost of War Reaches $450 Billion
According to the National Priorities Project, the War in Iraq has now cost American taxpayers $450 billion. That stands in stark contrast to the $100 billion to $200 billion pricetag estimated by President Bush’s chief economic advisor in September 2002 or the $50 billion to 60$ billion estimate offered by the White House Office of Management and Budget Director in December 2002.
The National Priorities Project explains how it calculates the cost of the war:
The Cost of Iraq War calculator is set to reach $456 billion September 30, 2007, the end of fiscal year 2007. The Cost of Iraq War calculator is occasionally reset based on new information and new allocations of funding. The numbers include military and non-military spending, such as reconstruction. Spending only includes incremental costs, additional funds that are expended due to the war. For example, soldiers’ regular pay is not included, but combat pay is included. Potential future costs, such as future medical care for soldiers and veterans wounded in the war, are not included. It is also not clear whether the current funding will cover all military wear and tear. It also does not account for the Iraq War being deficit-financed and that taxpayers will need to make additional interest payments on the national debt due to those deficits.
The media (and others) sometimes cite a figure that is in excess of our estimate. However, the number cited by the media may include not just the Iraq War, but the Afghanistan War and for enhanced security abroad. Our figure is only covering the cost of the Iraq War as it relates to the U.S. federal budget (and does not include costs to others or other countries or any economic impact costs to Americans).
This number is based on an analysis of the legislation in which Congress has allocated money for war so far and research by the Congressional Research Service (latest report) which has access to Department of Defense financial reports.
To get a better grasp on exactly how much this war is costing American taxpayers, consider this: at the current rate of spending, the war in Iraq is costing approximately:
$100 billion per year
$8.5 billion per month
$285 million per day
$12 million per hour
Note: This post is cross-posted at The Coming Realignment.
8 Responses to “Cost of War Reaches $450 Billion”
Who was it that said that it’s a lot cheaper to buy oil than to steal it?
Thanks for the link to NPP, Nick. While I have some reservations about components of their material — for instance, they are clearly designing many of the charts and graphs to give a certain impression of spending by the manner in which budget items are grouped or divided — it has a lot of very useful intro materials on the debt, expenditures, etc. Nice place overall.
I’m not normally one to say “if not for the Iraq war then we’d be able to fund such and such” but then I ran across this article about geothermic power (I’ve linked to it before, but I’m still amazed so I’m gonna do it again and probably again in a few weeks).
Based on their numbers, we could be producing close to enough power for the whole country for 2 months of the Iraq war…near perpetually and with minimal impact (the biggest hurdle would actually be energy delivery at that point).
As GYWO said so long ago, for that kind of money the Iraqis should be so free they can fly. God, I wish we could take this decade back.
Mikkel said:
I’m not normally one to say “if not for the Iraq wa] then we’d be able to fund such and such†I
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I haven;t said it much, but I’ve thought about it a lot.
The link is fascinating and illustrates how pedestrian the talk in Washington about new technologies is.
We’re way behind many countries in innovating in order to deal with the demand for fuel and other areas, as well. (note our auto industry).
I think we’re turning into Rip Van Winkle, and I hope it won;t be too late when we finally wake up.
Yeah, the cost of the war is shckling us in many ways, IMO.
The point of me linking to NPP is not to suggest that the money we’re spending in Iraq should instead be going into public housing, public education, or health care. The money could just as well be used to further more fiscally conservative causes such as paying down the national debt, reforming social security, or exacting further tax cuts.
The point is that the Iraq War—like any government program—costs money. And while I don’t think American foreign policy should be dictated by popular opinion, I believe that American taxpayers have every right to demand that their taxpayer dollars not be spent on a war which is not improving our national security.
Every hour that we spending debating whether the surge has been successful or whether we should set a deadline for withdrawal, $12 million of taxpayer dollars is spent nation-building in Iraq.
When you go to Las Vegas with $6,000 and manage to blow off $3,000 of it, the rational response is to stop to consider whether that remaining $3,000 might better be saved or invested in some other enterprise and realize that if you continue to gamble, there’s a very high likelihood that you’ll end up losing the remaining $3,000 as well.
It is not rational, on the other hand, to continue gambling under the assumption that if you quit now, the first $3,000 will have been lost in vain or that the odds of recovering that $3,000 is in your favor.
The American people have worked hard to achieve what money they have, and it is not fair to ask them to continue to fritter away their hard-earned money on some utopian fantasy cooked up in some neoconservative thinktank.
The point is that the Iraq War–like any government program
“!The money could just as well be used to further more fiscally conservative causes such as paying down the national debt, reforming social security, or exacting further tax cuts.”
Uh, no! This would be irresponsible. Remember, this isn’t money the US earn but that they borrow, from the Chinese, among others. The only right thing is stopping to spend it.
Speaking of these issues, one way I have so far been disappointed in virtually all the candidates is in their seeming complete lack of serious interest in paying down the debt. Democrats want to let the Bush tax cuts go and hope things work out from that alone. Republicans are all over the place, it seems. Does anyone know of a good site that takes a look at the various candidates’s position on budgetary matters, balanced or otherwise, with the pros and cons?