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What the $315 billion dollars we're spending on occupation could buy here at home…
Bush is asking for $245 billion dollars to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq this year and next.
You may have heard that neither project is going particularly well, but we're soldiering on.
The loot The Decider seeks is in addition to the $70 billion already allocated for '07, bringing the two-year total to $315 billion dollars. That is, if he doesn't ask for more next year.
A lot of this money is for "modernizing" the military. That is to say, it's for fancy new weapons systems to replace damaged or lost equipment -- many of which, like the F-22 joint strike-fighter, are not really designed to help fight insurgencies. This is all in addition to a 10 percent increase in the regular war budget (AKA "Defense budget"), bringing it to $481 billion in 2008.
These big numbers are hard to grasp. So I took a tour around the National Priorities Project Database and checked in with the Apollo Alliance and the Disabled American Veterans to see how far that kind of lucre might have gone if spent on domestic programs.
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