The Big Waste

By Mick Youther

07/03/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- One of the big news stories at the end of June was that the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffet, was donating $37 billion to the Gates Foundation, which is headed by the richest man in the world, Bill Gates. Mr. Buffet's gift would double the assets available to the Gates Foundation and allow it to spend about $3 billion a year on its various charitable projects.

According to the news reports, this level of spending would allow the Gates Foundation to treat each of the 40 million worldwide AIDS patients, fund vaccinations that would save 6 million children, and cut world hunger in half.

• "When you look at the amount of resources that are now going to be in the Gates Foundation, we could be looking at literally tens of millions of lives saved over the next decade." --Dr. Nils Daulaire of the Global Health Council, ABC News, 6/27/06

In the same report, Bill Gates said the money could push their dream of providing a first-class education for every American child, and his wife, Melinda Gates, said, "I think we dream in our lifetime about an AIDS Vaccine."

As I listened to the laundry list of good things the Gates Foundation could do with $3 billion, I kept thinking ...or they could pay for two weeks of the Iraq War, but it seems that I overestimated how much Iraq War you can buy for $3 billion.

• "The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found." --TheWashington Post, 4/20/06

I find it hard to comprehend the amount of money that our government is wasting in Iraq, but a study done by Senator Ted Kennedy's office (D-MA) puts it in perspective by pointing out what we could have purchased with the same amount of money that is wasted in just one day of Mr. Bush's War. Here are some examples taken from a statement given by Senator Kennedy on the Senate floor on October 25, 2005:

For the cost of fighting the war in Iraq one day, we could do any of the following:

• Purchase 780 fire trucks for improving local emergency response capabilities.

• Employ 4,919 fire fighters, 4,222 police patrol officers, or 7,052 paramedics and emergency medical technicians for one year each.

• Double the federal budget for nuclear reactor safety and security inspections to ensure that these potential terrorist targets are adequately protected.

• Pay for 1,101 additional border patrol agents to better guard our borders against potential terrorists.

• Provide 9,750 port container inspection units to detect hazardous materials being trafficked into the country.

• Cover the full cost of attendance for one year at a public college for more than 17,100 students.

• Enroll 27,000 more children in Head Start.

• Employ 4,269 elementary school teachers or 4,027 secondary school teachers for one year.

• Provide health insurance coverage to 344,500 working Americans to give them a break from the rising cost of coverage.

• Provide health insurance coverage for one year to 380,900 uninsured children in America.

• Employ 3,597 additional registered nurses for one year.

• Provide unemployment benefits for almost 722,000 unemployed Americans for one week.

• Fund Social Security retirement benefits for one day for over 6.75 million Americans.

• Pay for an increase of $3.34 per hour in the wages of every minimum wage worker in the country.

• Provide paid sick leave to half a million workers for an entire year.

• Pay for one year's gasoline consumption for 97,500 Americans, even at today's elevated prices.

• Feed all of the starving children in the world today almost four and a half times over.

• Vaccinate three-quarters of the children in Africa for measles and give millions a lifetime protection from the disease.

• Build 5,571 AIDS clinics in Africa.

• Provide 650,000 women in Africa living with HIV/AIDS antiretroviral treatment for one year to extend their lives and improve the lives of their children.

(Note: these figures were based on an estimate of $195 million per day being spent on the Iraq War. If the Congressional Research Service's recent estimate of $10 billion per month is correct, we are spending $330 million each and every day to fight Mr. Bush's War.)

As bad as this may sound, some leading economists believe the current estimates do not even come close to predicting the true cost of Mr. Bush's War. According to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School, the Congressional Research Service estimate is "only the tip of a very deep iceberg." (quoted by Matthew Yglesias, The American Prospect, 7/5/06) They predict the real cost of Mr. Bush's War will be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion--10 times what has been previously predicted. (Their study is available here.

• "[Their] study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war." -- Jamie Wilson, The Guardian, 1/7/06

In their attempt to consider the "real" cost of the war, they have even placed a price on the priceless:

• "In calculating the (incalculable) value of the American lives lost, they used the standard applied in government safety regulations for a prime-age male-about $6 million-rather than the much lower standard DoD death benefit and life insurance payments to survivors." --Miriam Pemberton, Peace and Security Editor of Foreign Policy In Focus, TomPaine.com, 1/19/06

Various figures have been used to calculate the cost of a dead American soldier or Marine, but I don't believe anyone has asked the families what the life of their prime-age male (or female) was worth. If they did, I suspect the price would be more than anyone would ever want to pay.

Nobody knows how much the war in Iraq will eventually cost; but any way you add it up, it is a waste. It was not worth the sacrifice of one American life or one American dollar because it does not benefit the American people in any way. All the war has meant to Americans is 2,529 dead soldiers and Marines (6/29/06), an over-extended military, higher gas prices, and an enormous debt to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

Does that sound like a good deal to you?. 

Mick Youther is an American citizen, an independent voter, a veteran, a parent, a Christian, a scientist, a writer, and all-around nice guy who has been aroused from a comfortable apathy by the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush Administration.

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