How much is this botched war costing us?
From the National Priorities Project, who base their data on congressional appropriations, the up-to-the-minute total is $339 billion. As for 2006, the current estimate is $100.4 billion. From zfacts:
The US budget for Iraq in FY 2006 comes to $3,749/Iraqi. This is more than double their per person GDP. It's like spending $91,000 per person in the US. Why not just bribe the whole country?
Let's make some comparisons. All figures are in billions of dollars:
War in Iraq FY2006: 100.4
NSF budget 2006: 5.6
NIH budget 2006: 28.7
Department of Education FY2006: 56.9
More like this
Good news from RPM:
President Bush's FY2007 budget included no increase in funding for the NIH. Scientists have been lobbying Congress to amend the budget to at least increase the NIH budget to keep even with inflation. You can follow the story in these posts:
We still have a chance to increase the NIH budget for this year.