What can you buy with $300 Billion?

When I read that the Iraq war cost is now near (or over) the $300 billion mark, it hit me that I had heard that number somewhere before...

In 1956 Dwight D. Eisenhower began the interstate highway system which to date has provided, among other things, the following:

> Safer roads that have saved the lives of at least 187,000 people and has prevented injuries to nearly 12 million people.

> It has returned more than $6 in economic productivity for each $1 it cost.

> It has positioned the nation for improved international competitiveness.

> It has enhanced international security.

What has been the total Federal outlay for this project over the almost 50 years since it began?

$330 Billion!!!

Bush has squandered that much in only two years and there is no end in sight. Big numbers seem to just go right over people's heads. Few people can even comprehend the magnitude of a million dollars, much less a billion. I think it is only with such comparisons that people can begin to see what an economic disaster this war is.

the war is an economic disaster for everyone except for the war profiteers

that's the way it's always been

We need alien intervention so that those who have IQs under triple digits do not reign supreme...

Hopefully we won't get detected by the Wraith...

...country a $120,000 a year raise in pay. Hope that puts it in perspective.

That is the type of reply I was hoping for. The more examples like that the greater the impact.

had to in 2001 - you could just as easily spend it on health care, infrastructure. And if you want to spend it outside the country..you could have spent it on infrastructure in Africa.

not to mention medicine that save millions from malaria