Spent & Approved War-Spending - Over $600 billion of US taxpayers' funds. President Bush is expected to request another $140 billion for 2008, which would bring the cumulative total to close to $750 billion.For approximately 3 weeks of war in Iraq, we could have paid the costs of ensuring the bridges are safe. We could have easily paid for universal healthcare for all Americans, instead of a botched war.
U.S. Monthly Spending in Iraq - $12 billion, in 2007
U.S. Daily Spending in Iraq - over $200 million, in 2007
Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors. Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.
Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq - $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings
Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion
Speaking of bridges, remember the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere? The Republican sponsor of the legislation, Ted "teh intertubes" Stevens, has a few issues.
Members of Congress recently under scrutiny by federal authorities:
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Senate Republicans:
_Ted Stevens of Alaska, sixth term. Stevens is under a federal investigation for his relationship with Bill Allen, an oil field services contractor who was convicted this year of bribing state lawmakers. Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service searched the senator's Alaska home on Monday.
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House Republicans:
_Don Young of Alaska, 18th term. Young is under federal investigation as part of an ongoing corruption probe, according to a federal law enforcement official. Part of the Young investigation involves his campaign finance practices.
_John Doolittle of California, ninth term. The FBI in April searched his home in Oakton, Va., where his wife Julie ran a bookkeeping and event-planning business. Among her clients was now-jailed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
_Jerry Lewis of California, 15th term. Prosecutors are examining his dealings with lobbyists and contractors during the time he chaired the House Appropriations Committee.
_Gary Miller of California, fifth term. FBI agents have interviewed officials in two towns that purchased property from Miller about the nature of the transactions and the tax implications. Miller denies any wrongdoing and says FBI agents have not contacted him.
_Rick Renzi of Arizona, third term. FBI agents recently raided his wife's insurance business amid reports that Renzi paid substantial back taxes to settle charges that his businesses improperly paid for his first congressional campaign.
2 comments:
Did you know that if a soldier loses any army issued items that they have to pay to replace it. One soldier actually had to pay $400.00 for a fricken flashlight. Now you tell me, have you ever heard of a $400.00 flashlight? What is the irony there I ask you?
Lynn
I think the "ould've payed for bridges instead of going to Iraq" arugement is really weak (no pun intended). We could've done a lot of things, and a lot of them previous to Iraq. Yeah, we could've, but we could've pulled money from anything and spent it on bridges.
PS: According to USAToday last week, there was a study in the late 80s, I wanna say 86-88, that ranked over 50% of the bridges in the US "defficient" which doesn't mean they are ready to fall over, but do have major structural issues that could be effected by vehicles near their wieght capacity and large ammounts of traffic.
See, bridges have gone through little modernization since the 60s even though the volume of traffic has increased by huge amounts and the amount of heavy traffic, semis with double trailers and such, has increased. This really isn't a new thing. The government has known about it for some time.
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