Getting a realistic estimate for the financial cost of the war in Iraq is tricky, if not impossible. We have direct spending, interest on the debt (the war is almost entirely going on the national credit card), increased medical costs, major future expenses, etc. One thing’s for sure — Bush administration estimates of a $50 billion price tag were a little off the mark. OK, more than a little.
At about $300 million a day, the cost is increasingly painful. Linda Bilmes, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and former Clinton administration adviser, put a total price tag of more than $2 trillion on the war. Today in the New York Times, David Leonhardt puts the number closer to $1.2 trillion, and explains todaywhat could the money could have been spent on.
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.
Lost opportunities, all.
Leonhardt added another way of considering the numbers — annually.
Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.
Treating heart disease and diabetes, by contrast, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion.
“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”
Remember when White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey was fired, in part because he acknowledged, in public, that the cost of the war could be as high as $200 billion? Remember in the 2004 presidential election, when Bush/Cheney said Kerry/Edwards didn’t know what they were talking about because both said the war cost about a quarter-trillion dollars?
I think the White House would prefer if we just forgot about all of that.