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The US Constitution Coloring Book with a twist How would you spend $611 billion Hey im back :) Christmas. What is the true meaning? You Decide Sex and Politics? Orgasm for Peace...........Im there :) Video Game Geeks, the Day of all days is upon us. SEX...its in all our minds Opinions in Tehachapi? i think i'll stick around a bit :P well good bye and farewell October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 
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How would you spend $611 billion
If the Bush administration succeeds in its latest request for funding for the war in Iraq, the total cost would rise to $611.5 billion, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group.
The amount got us wondering: What would $611 billion buy? 1) Nearly 4,000 Newton North High Schools
Tagged as the most expensive high school in Massachusetts, at $154.6 million, the construction design for the new Newton North High School could be replicated almost 4,000 times using the money spent on the war.
2)Almost 18 months' worth of free gas for everyone
US drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the United States, for about 530 days.
3)Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road
With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.
TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion. 4)Nearly 14 million years' worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard
At published rates for this year, $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free rides for a year at Harvard University. 5)More than a year's worth of Medicare benefits for everyone
In fiscal 2008, Medicare benefits will total $454 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation summary. The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health benefit program for poor children.
6)A looong contract for Dice-K
The Red Sox and Daisuke Matsuzaka agreed on a six-year, $52 million contract. The war cost could be enough to have Dice-K mania for more than 70,000-some years at this year's rate.
7)A real war on poverty
According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.
At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years. 8)152.7 million people in the USA will own a Xbox360, PS3, and Nintendo Wii with a bunch of games an a couple years worth of internet service 9)Tehachapi can own thier own fire dept, have a 200,000 seat stadium for the warriors football, may build that road to Arvin from stallion springs Do you have any other ideas on how to spend $611 billion – or comparisons for what that money could have bought? SIGH.... 27 comments from 8 users
posted by
Starbucks1
on Nov 12, 2007 at 03:32 PM
All this from the person who just said, "this place is to political for me, I'm leaving ",now you come back with a political post, okay then, $611 BIllion, a little more than same amount that Hillary and Bill have collected from illegal sources, going back to the 1990's, whats your view on them and their ongoing campaign fundraising scandal that dosent seem to end, or get any mainstream media attention?
posted by
trouble
on Nov 12, 2007 at 04:31 PM
yo starbucks stay on topic. or start your own.
posted by
kidswi
on Nov 12, 2007 at 10:24 PM
Great food for thought, huh!?
posted by
olivia
on Nov 13, 2007 at 04:43 AM
611 billion dollars. That's a lot of cash to be in charge of. There are a lot of "somebodies" who don't think long enough to realize that a lot of people in "our country" would benefit from that. This has become what I consider a "dog eat dog" country. So many are so wrapped up in what they want, they can't understand other people's difficulties. Nor do they seem to care. There are a lot of kids who would love the opportunity to go to college but will never be able to. Priorities have been thrown out the window. Please don't tell me that this "war" is still a priority. Some of you will defend Bush until the day he dies. This is a man who is not going down in history as a great man. He's going to be known as a nut job. I could care less about politics and politicians, they all have their personal agendas and the USA isn't one of them. I've said many times that they will all flap their jaws in the direction of getting the most votes. No one actually knows what's really going on inside their head. When a President is finally able to bring back the middle class and every mother in the US has a choice of working or raising her kids I'll consider that President as a "great man/woman". posted by
Starbucks1
on Nov 13, 2007 at 06:12 AM
Olivia, it is easier for poor kids to go to college than middle class kids, do some research, my kids were all denied college grants because we make too much money, and we are below middle class!, but poor kids, especially minority poor kids get all the money they want to go to college, now, I am no fan of Bush, but most of the money spent on the war goes to military families, and contractors that are American, so, the majority of the money goes back into our economy,and remember, it was congress that gave Bush the go ahead to go to Iraq, it was a noble cause to get rid of Saddam, we all want our troops to come home, but it must be done intelligently, if you want to complain about Gov waste, then we should stop all the pork spending out there, get people off welfare and make them work, and stop illegals from draining our resources from us.
posted by
oohchild
on Nov 13, 2007 at 08:25 AM
It sounds like you folks think this money was readily available & all we had to do was decide how to spend it. This is borrowed money. Starbucks1, you do realize your children & grandchildren will be paying for Dubya's occupation, don't you? Maybe the reason your kids didn't qualify for grants is because of this totally unecessary "war." Maybe the government would have been more inclined to raise the income limits for student grants if we weren't so enmeshed in this mess we caused in Iraq. So, why aren't your kids working towards the millions of dollars available in scholarships? There's so many options out there for good students to qualify for local & regional scholarships. You're such a fan of the private sector; why isn't it working for you? Your point about the money being spent on our people working to rebuild the country we just devastated sounds like you support public work projects to employ our workers. Do you support public works projects in our country? Are you a fan of the New Deal that Roosevelt initiated to put our country back to work? If not, do you see the disconnect there? posted by
bigdog
on Nov 13, 2007 at 09:05 AM
oohchild hey we agree :) To say that a majority of the 611 billion dollars goes back into our economy is funny. Its funny to me how people well defend and justify this war. Like the USA is relay benefiting from this war. Have you filled up your gas tank lately. This war was not waged as a noble cause it was waged because we where told that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. We where told this to scare us so that we would support the war. now that we know the truth a majority of the nation wants the war to be over. yes Congress gave the go ahead for the war and just like most of us they believed the the lies and where scared. now many in Congress has learned the truth and want our sons and daughters to come home. And you Bush lovers call them names.It is not the pork spending and the people that need public assistance that is not the problem. Bush and his war is the problem. Remember their was not one Iraqi on any of the plains that crash into buildings on 911. They where Saudis and who's in bushes back pocket, Saudi Arabia. Starbucks i do agree with you on the illegals, But you have to be careful there because if you speak out against the illegals you well be labeled a racist posted by
countygirl
on Nov 13, 2007 at 09:58 AM
In the beginning I was a supporter of the war, but one has to know when to cut their losses and we have definitely lost this one. Other than taking down Saddam(which we should have done ages ago...Clinton!!) I'm not sure what we've accomplished. There is to much going on here in this country. We need to start taking better care of our own. With disasters like Katrina, the yearly tornadoes in Florida, and the most recent devastation is San Diego, happening more and more we need to start using some of this money to help rebuild these places. FEMA is an absolute joke. They seriously need to get their act together. We should be building bigger and better schools and bringing back things like art and music. Starbucks- What do you consider middle class? I consider myself middle class, and we live off of one income. Last year both my kids were in a state run preschool. We qualified, on a firefighters pay check. I think the qualifying numbers were reasonable, but then again we don't own a home, and we only have one car payment. I could see where if we had a mortgage and a couple car payments I'd feel below middle class also. I'm really curious though what people consider middle class these days. Has it stayed the same or gone up (in people's heads) since the cost of living has skyrocketed? posted by
bigdog
on Nov 13, 2007 at 10:06 AM
Countygirl you said that we shoulda took down Saddam years ago and then you mentioned Clinton. Bush # 1 should have taken Saddam out in the first war but he pussed out before finishing the job. Coulda woulda shoulda huh posted by
countygirl
on Nov 13, 2007 at 10:13 AM
No, I said we should have taken him down years ago. You are right, Bush Sr. should have gotten it done the first time around, but he didn't, so Clinton should have, but he didn't. I guess third time was the charm. Sorry, but I think the only p***y out of our last few presidents was Clinton. I know many will disagree with me, but no one can blame 9/11 completely on Bush without first blaming Clinton IMO.
posted by
bigdog
on Nov 13, 2007 at 10:27 AM
Bin Laden and a group of craze's where to blame for 911, put the blame where it go's. Neither bush or Clinton flew those plains into the buildings. COULDA WOULDA SHOULDA. Just because neither pres took Bin Laden out does not mean that its their fault. Eye sight is 20/20 vision and we can debate what the former pres did or did not do was right or wrong but to blame any pres for something a bunch of radicals did is wrong.
posted by
countygirl
on Nov 13, 2007 at 10:36 AM
Bigdog, I personally don't blame anyone other than Bin Laden and the Taliban myself, but that doesn't change that fact that many people do blame our current and past president for this tragedy. Heck, some people blame us for this so I guess it's all just a matter of personal opinion. So I guess it really doesn't matter much. So bigdog what do you consider middle class? posted by
bigdog
on Nov 13, 2007 at 11:12 AM
Countygirl Ditto.. Now on to middle class. I really don't know. It seams like we work and work but never get ahead. I have great respect for one income family's. We are a two income family and do alright. I think that there is a upper and lower middle class and we fall in the lower. After bills and feeding a army we don't have much left to waste. Now that I'm on disability we make even less and we have a hard time making ends meet. There is a lot of stealing from peter to pay Paul. But I'll be back to work soon so things will get better. Every thing is so expensive now, a trip to the grocery store to pick up a few things can easily cost a hundred dollars. Filling up my gas tank is another fifty bucks. I'm happy that we make enough to pay our bills and feed us. But i do wish that every thing wasn't so damn expensive. posted by
Starbucks1
on Nov 13, 2007 at 11:52 AM
I stopped trying to debate the Iraq war with liberals long ago, Liberals are too much in denial of the facts that led to the war. Facts like it was Clinton, British and other intelligence that told Bush that WMD's were there, so he went with what people told him, he didn't lie. Also,, Iraq was in violation of the cease fire agreement from the first Gulf war, that gave us the Legal right to go in,and they had terrorist training camps, something else the liberals forget about, anyway, bigdog, do a little research on where money goes to our military and you might learn something, I just happen to believe we should be on the offensive against terrorist's, and there is alot of good news happening in Iraq now, you just wont hear about it in the liberal media, they have a vested interest in our defeat there, if we fail there, then the democrats win here, there is some backwards logic for you, how many of you have talked to soldiers that have been there?, I have, 99% want to finish the job, they don't want to cut and run, lets give them what they need to do it.if Bush wont , then I hope the next president will, and oohchild, my son is doing just fine in college, he did get some small scholarships to begin with and he also works part time, he were raised to understand that you must work hard to be successful, dont depend on the government to give you free health care, section 8 housing, and take care of you. take care of yourself, and try not to waste the money that you have, like on cigarettes, that will just lead to heart disease and lung cancer that taxpayers have to pay for to treat you.
posted by
madkow2747
on Nov 13, 2007 at 12:35 PM
Middle class is tricky, because cost-of-living in California is way higher than the national average. (Here's a good article on it (hehe): http://www.taxfoundation.or... ) Basically it says that the middle 60% in terms of income comprise the middle class. And it also says that 80% of people consider themselves middle class, with only 2% of people considering themselves upper class. It's all about perception, keeping up with the Jones' and whatnot. It does have a chart that defines the middle 60% range for all households as $20,036 - $97,032. If you're in a married household, it goes to $35,476 - $121,842.The war has nothing to do with college grants... they were the same before the war, and the government isn't going to throw money into it anytime soon, even when state college tuitions rose. (I was stuck in the same situation... my parents made too much- which was barely enough for themselves- and it didn't matter that they weren't paying for me to go to college. That's why most students have to work full time, usually well over full time, to make ends meet. It's a fact of college life these days. I had some scholarships, but it was tough making them go through. That's why everyone I know my age has loans, both subsidized and unsubsidized, that they struggle with.) |
