THIS WAR IS COSTING YOU....

On Wednesday, September 16th, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress for "an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." This additional funding would bring the total request  for 2008 to $190 billion-- "the largest single-year total for the wars so far."

In the context of this money glut, the National Priorities Project issued its latest analysis of Iraq war funding and how the burden is borne by communities around the country. http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Publications/More-War-Funding-Requested-3.html

The America Friends Service Committee has broken the costs of the war down to $720 million a day and produced billboards, signs and postcards comparing this daily figure to the costs of human needs. They assert "While tax dollars were poured into the first four years  of the war, vital services and infrastructure at home have suffered the effects of a dwindling drip of federal funding.  Soaring Pentagon expenditures and "supplemental" war funding of hundreds of billions each year have emptied U.S. coffers and doubled the national debt, paving the way for an assault on human services in the name of fiscal restraint."

"Between 2002 and 2006, dozens of federal programs have been cut, including Head Start, the Community Food and Nutrition program, youth ob training, affordable housing, and maternal and child health rograms. The official U.S. poverty rate grew from 34.6 to 37 million between 2002 and 2005; and1.5 million people joined the ranks of those living without health insurance. For $720 million - the cost of one day of occupation of Iraq – the U.S. could provide over 400,000 children with health care, or over a million children with free school lunches for a year.

And that's not all....

One day of U.S. occupation could also provide:

6,482 families with homes

163,525 people with healthcare

84 elementary schools

12,478 elementary school teachers

34,904 four year scholarships for university students.

READ MORE AT: http://www.afsc.org/cost/default.htm