“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.”

– Sen. Everett Dirksen (1896-1969)[i]

    On March 19^th of this past week America began the sixth year of the war in Iraq. Then, just four days later, on Easter Sunday, our death toll in Iraq reached 4,000 U.S. troops. Tragically, almost 60% of those that have been killed were under 26 years old.[ii] And according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a website which tracks U. S. deaths in Iraq, 113 of those casualties have been men and women from Virginia.

    Five years into this war Americans, both young and old, have mixed feelings about this so-called “War on Terror”. For some young people this war has come at far too high a cost – they believe we must leave Iraq now. But for others, like President George W. Bush, this “high cost in lives and treasure…[is] necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq.”[iii]

    Indeed, 4,000 lives is a high cost. The casualties of this war have been mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; friends; and loved ones. And, notwithstanding our devastation by these losses, is a growing sense of frustration with, as President Bush put it, the “high cost…[in] treasure.”[iv]

    Across the country fears about America’s staggering economy have begun to dominate conversations. Young people are even beginning to express their concerns as some of their parents are losing their homes – and some, their jobs.  Many economists are echoing these fears. In a March 9 editorial in the Washington Post, Linda J. Bilmes, a former chief financial officer at the Commerce Department turned Harvard professor and Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Bill Clinton wrote that “[t]he total loss from this economic downturn – measured by the disparity between the economy’s actual output and its potential output – is likely to be the greatest since the Great Depression.”[v] Bilmes and Stiglitz place much of their blame for “the already sputtering U.S. economy” on the five years – now six – we have spent on a war in Iraq, stating: “You can’t spend $3 trillion – yes, $3 trillion – on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home.”[vi]

    True, this $3 trillion expenditure suggested by Bilmes and Stiglitz is one of the highest assessments of American’s “treasure[s]” that we’ve sacrificed to allegedly fight global terror. But, estimates in the trillions are hardly unusual.

    For 2008 alone, Congress has already approved $70 billion in emergency war funding, and in her Feb. 2008 report prepared for the members of Congress, Amy Belasco, a Specialist in U.S. Defense Policy and Budget Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade, suggested it is “likely” that this spring “Congress may consider the pending emergency war request for [the Department of Defense], State/USAID of $105.2 billion.”[vii] But this potential $105.2 billion should come as no surprise to those who have watched our military spending continue to soar. In 2007 we spent $171 billion[viii], in 2006 $121.8 billion,[ix] and from 2001 to 2005 we spent $316.6 billion.[x] Amazingly, the report found that to date, “taking into account the additional pending war requests for FY2008 and FY2009, enacted and requested war funding totals about $875 billion for DOD, State/USAID and VA Medical.”[xi] This Congressional Report estimates that over 75 percent of that $875 billion was spent in Iraq. [xii]

Finally, the Congressional Report estimates that “[i]f DOD’s total FY2008 request is enacted, the level in FY2008 would be 160% higher or more than one-and one-half times larger than FY2004.”[xiii]

    What is perhaps most unnerving about these reports is that even if we begin to pull troops out of Iraq, leaving just 30,000 troops by 2010 or 75,000 by 2013, the Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) is reporting the additional war costs for the next 10 years could range from $570 billion to $1.1 trillion, respectively. CBO projects, under these scenarios, that “funding for Iraq, Afghanistan and the GWOT could reach from about $1.2 trillion to about $1.7 trillion for FY2001-FY2017.”[xiv]

But what does a trillion dollars really look like?

Well, for starters, it’s a 1 followed by 12 zeros. And it looks like this:

1,000,000,000,000

or sometimes 1E12

$1 trillion = 1,000 x $1 billion = 1,000 x (1,000 x $1 million) = 1,000 x [1,000(1,000 x 1,000)] = well you get the idea.

Q.  How tall is $1 trillion?

 A.  If you stack $1 bills, one on top of the other, $1 trillion dollars of stacked $1 bills would be 1 billion feet tall. And if you stack $100 bills, one on top of the other, $1 trillion worth of $100 bills is 10 million feet tall. [xv] So, think of it this way:

·         At 1,670 feet, the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan is arguably the tallest building in the world. It would take 5,988 Taipei 101 Towers[xvi] to match the height of $1 trillion worth of stacked

          $100 bills; or

·         $1 trillion in $100 bills would fill a football field – 6 feet deep.[xvii]

Q.  What is 1 trillion in time?

A.  In a Rutgers community forum, Administrator Wise Young teaches us that:

·         1 trillion minutes ago = 31,688 years ago = close to the beginning of human history!

·         “If you spent $1 per minute, you could barely spend a trillion dollars during all of known human history.”

·         If you spent $100 every minute it would take you OVER 300 YEARS to spend $1 trillion = Almost the entire U.S. history. [xviii]

Q.  How much does $1 trillion weigh?

 A.  1 trillion $1 bills = 2,202,643,172 lbs, or about:

·         168,140,700 turkeys which is more than enough turkeys to feed every American household[xix] on Thanksgiving Day; or

·         10,012 blue whales; or[xx]

·         6,257,509 versions of the heaviest car (according to Guinness World Records) a person ever balanced on their head.[xxi]

Q.  How long is $1 trillion?

 A.  If you stacked $1 bills, one on top of the other, and then laid the stack across the earth – the length of a trillion dollars could take you around the world 7½ times.[xxii]

Okay, so now that you get the picture…

IMAGINE What We Could Have Bought with the $1 Trillion We’ve Spent in Iraq -

We Could Have Bought…

·         1 pair of sneakers[xxiii] for every person in the world; or

·         150 ITunes songs for every person in the world; or

·         36,363 years of Yankee baseball action from Alex Rodriguez; or[xxiv]

·         16 Warren Buffets; or[xxv]

·         1 year starting salaries for 31,217,806 Sociology majors[xxvi] (like me!); or

·         3 MacBooks for every American; or

·         2 OLPC laptops[xxvii] for every child in the world[xxviii]; or

·         4GB Ipod for every person in the world; or[xxix]

We Could…

·         Pay-off the credit card debt[xxx] of every household in America;[xxxi] or

·         Immunize every newborn baby[xxxii] in the world – for over 400 years.[xxxiii] We

          would save the lives of 2.2 million children each year;[xxxiv] or

·         Provide a lifetime of health care to 3 million people;[xxxv] or

·         Fund, for 9 years, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) health care plan, termed “Hillary

          Health”[xxxvi], which she says will provide health care to every American; or

·         Fund, for 15 years, Sen. Obama’s (D-NY) health care plan[xxxvii], which he says will

          make health care affordable for everyone; or

·         Fund the World Food Program, at its current budget,  for 344 years;[xxxviii] or

·         Feed every child in the world a school lunch for 1818 days[xxxix] – nearly 5 years; or

·         Buy 9 trillion servings of Ramen noodles[xl]. If every person in the world ate                   Ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner – $1 trillion would feed the world           for well over a year.

And There’s Even More We Could Do, Like…

·        Provide full scholarships to 18 million students – that’s a scholarship for every eligible 18 year old in America for 4 years![xli]; or

·        Pay the salaries of 20 million American teachers.[xlii]

    With $1 trillion we could save millions of lives; better educate every child on earth; feed every person on the planet; provide heath care to every American who can’t afford private insurance; create more jobs; send every child who is currently in high school to college; and aide the 3.7 million Afghan people who have become victims of America’s war and are now, according to the BBC, the largest group of dispossessed people in the world[xliii].

    It is truly a high cost in lives and treasure to know what we could have had – what we should have had – had we not been mislead into this war. 4,000 lives gone – most of them under 26 – they are the true treasure.

    How many more lives before the cost is too great? Because the reality is – if we are appalled by 4,000 deaths – shouldn’t we be similarly appalled by 3,996?

    How many more billions – now trillions – of dollars are we willing to spend before this deficit, some say depression, starts seeming like real money? And if it is starting to feel real now, as our economy is falling and our homes are being repossessed – how bad will it feel in another year, or two?

“More than 4,400 men and women have given their lives in the war on terror. We’ll pray for their families. We’ll always honor their memory. The best way we can honor them is by making sure that their sacrifice was not in vain.”

 – President George W. Bush, Mar 18, 2008

    Mr. Bush we would honor their memory by using some of that $1 trillion to endow a scholarship in each of their names. Mr. Bush we would honor their memory by funding the immunizations that would save 2.2 million children in their names. Mr. Bush we would honor their memory by ensuring that their families won’t be forced to leave their homes. Mr. Bush, we would honor their memory by bringing their friends, family, and comrades home.