What the Bush/Cheney War in Iraq Costs

According to the American Friends Service Committee, U.S. taxpayers have spent close to $1 Trillion (that's 1,000,000,000,000.00) on the war and occupation of Iraq.

The study says the war is costing us $720,000,000 (that's $720 million) per day.

President Bush is threatening to veto an expansion of the States Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which has broad support among Democrats and Republicans in the Congress.

One of the reason he cites is the cost of the program as proposed by Congress.

The notion that this guy gives a whit about fiscal responsibility is beyond belief. Consider this information from the American Friends Service Committee statement about the cost of the war to Americans:

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 job training, affordable housing, and maternal and child health programs. 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.

Republicans and Democrats have made a lot of noise about standing up to Bush/Cheney on a range of issues. It has not worked out that way on the matter of the war.

Let's see if they find their backbones on this issue.

As for Bush: How do you sleep?