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Category: Colorado
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Published on Friday, 11 April 2008 02:01
We came across a very interesting website, that's sort of a 'what if' when it comes to government spending. One section in particular was interesting, it tells you the amount of money that your community (or state, whatever you want to compare to) is
contributing to the war in Iraq. This is where it gets really interesting...you see, people generally have a hard time comprehending really large numbers, so to put it in perspective this website tells you what you could have gotten for that money. For example, Colorado Springs taxpayers have so far contributed about $640 million to the Iraq war (I assume that's an approximation based on population and nationwide tax collection). That amount of money could have built 75 new elementary schools, or equipped 843,679 homes with renewable energy (not clear if that would be 100% self-sustaining or not), or paid the salaries of 11,368 elementary school teachers, and, well, you get the point. We've spent a lot of money so far, money that could have had a direct impact on other parts of our lives. Now, there's a lot of debate about the Iraq war in general, so for those of you who support the way (and managed to read this far into this article), the website is still very interesting when viewing the REST of government spending. It has some useful information about government spending in general and the impact it has on each state, though it does have an anti-war bias. Of course this 'what if' conjecture IS a bit silly, as it's not like we're spending real money on Iraq, it's just increasing our deficit - so it's not like we'd actually be spending that money on schools and such if there weren't a war, but it does help one realize just how MUCH this war has cost so far (it may be just debt, but hey, we have to pay it back sooner or later). Open your mind and check it out for yourself
here.
