Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Just Make It $100 BILLION

You know there will be some cost overrun somewhere.
The Pentagon wants the White House to seek an additional $99.7 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In fact, the $300 million needed to make this a request equal a cool $100 billion could easily be squandered in a day.
Overall, the war in Iraq has cost about $350 billion. Combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and operations against terrorism elsewhere, the cost has topped $500 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

The additional funds, if approved, would push this year's cost of the war in Iraq to about $50 billion over last year's record. In September, Congress approved an initial $70 billion for the current budget year, which began Oct. 1.

[...]

The budget request includes:

_$41.5 billion to cover the costs of ongoing military operations.

_$26.7 billion for replacing and repairing equipment damaged or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

_$10 billion for body armor and other equipment to protect U.S. troops from attack.

_$2.5 billion to combat roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices.

_$2.7 billion for intelligence activities.

Speaking of intelligence activities (since there seems to be such a dearth of them in the Pentagon and White House), I'll give you my advice for about $250,000 which would be just about enough to keep me from stressing about credit card bills and how I'm going to pay my health insurance in January. And you folks can pocket the remaining $2,699,750,000.00, not to mention the savings in the other categories from listening to what I have to say. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

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