Iraq War Spending Vs. Education Spending
Jul 16, 2007 -- The Iraq war is costing the nation's taxpayers an astounding $186,000 per minute-every minute of every day. If the money would have been spent on education versus warring, here's what your hard earned tax dollars could have bought.
Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?
Different states and even different cities distribute tax dollars differently. Here is an example of how the taxes paid by a median income family in San Francisco are spent:
Sector $ Spent % Military $1,731 27% Health $1,329 21% Debt Interest (Non-Military) $657 10% Debt Interest (Military) $580 9% Income Security $383 6% Education $289 5% Veteran's Benefits $214 3% Nutrition $167 3% Housing $119 2% Natural Resources $97 2% Job Training $19 0% Other $790 12% Source: NationalPrioritiesProject.org
As you can see, military, interest on debt, and health account for two-thirds of every income tax dollar spent.
What if the money spent on war was instead spent on education?
The war in Iraq has cost a whopping $443.7 billion*. More than half of the people in the U.S. and more than half of the people in Iraq strongly oppose the war, yet the fighting-and the spending-continue.
Every state in the U.S. has contributed funds that could have been spent elsewhere. One great example is Oklahoma. The state has spent more than $6.7 billion on Iraq in only four years.
If the money would have been spent on education instead, it could have bought four-year college scholarships for 325,624 Oklahoma students-not bad considering less than 45,000 students graduated from an Oklahoma high school this year.
Nationally, the figures are just as distressing; here is what the money spent on Iraq could have provided in the U.S.:
- 21,510,598 full four-year scholarships to public universities
- 7,689,734 new public school teachers
- 58,770,981 chances for children to attend head-start
The money could have also purchased health insurance policies for 265,701,285 people or housing for 3,995,293 homeless families.
*Editor's note: This amount was precise at the moment of writing, but as the war is costing us an additional $186,000 per minute (every minute of every day), the true cost of the war is constantly increasing and therefore impossible to pinpoint. To see an example of how quickly it changes, you can visit costofwar.com.
[Emphasis added]
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