With no end in sight to turmoil in Iraq and Congress borrowing hundreds of billions to pay for the war, Dave in North Dakota wants to know: Just what is all this costing us? Meanwhile, all that spending has Gary in Pennsylvania worried about whether Uncle Sam can afford it — without going bankrupt.
How much money is our government spending, per week, in Iraq?
— Dave D., Mayville, N.D.
Given the chaotic nature of war and the complexities of government accounting, it’s pretty much impossible to come up with a hard number. And as soon as you come up with one, someone will come along and challenge what you’ve chosen to include of leave out.
When economists or financial analysts make estimates like these, they often take one of two approaches: “bottom-up” or “top-down.” In a bottom-up estimate, you’d try to add up all the individual costs on your list of war-related expenses: everything from the preparation of a meal for the troops to the manufacture of each bullet. The top-down approach just looks at what has been spent and estimates the level of future spending. The two methods are almost guaranteed to come up with different numbers.
So you’ve got several comprehensive studies to choose from. One of the most up-to date comes from the National Priorities Project, and Amherst-Mass.-based group that tracks the impact of federal spending on local communities. Using a “top-down” calculation based on U.S. budget appropriations, the group estimates the total money spent or allocated comes to about $255 million per day, or a little less than $1.8 billion a week. That figure includes both military and non-military spending on things like reconstruction.
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