How Your Federal Taxes Are Spent

Notice a disturbing trend here? Also note who the largest contributors to Republican political candidates are...

The Cost of Iraq (In Dollars)

The war in Iraq has cost Georgia Taxpayers thus far a total of: $9,187,900,000. That's over 9 Billion, with a big freaking "B".

Cost to various cities and counties:

Atlanta: $383,000,000
Brunswick: $9,200,000
Clarkston: $7,200,000
Clayton: $267,100,000
Cobb: $937,000,000
Decatur: $22,700,000
DeKalb: $865,000,000
Fulton: $1,021,300,000
Gwinnet County: $942,200,000
Hinesville: $28,100,000
Lawerenceville: $25,600,000
Marietta: $63,200,000
Pooler: $7,800,000
Richmond Hill: $8,700,000
Savannah: $101,000,000
Thunderbolt: $2,200,000
Tybee Island: $4,500,000

Local Costs of the Iraq War

The taxpayer cost of the Iraq War is broken down for various towns, cities and counties across the U.S. The breakdown is based on a total cost of $318.5 billion. That is $2,844 for every American household or $1,075 for every American. The money (already spent or allocated) is being spent at a rate $10 million per hour and $244 million per day.

The estimate is based on an NPP analysis of the legislation appropriating money for the Iraq War and a report published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in June 2006. The CRS report was based not just on Congressional appropriations, but on the Department of Defense's (DOD) DFAS monthly obligations reports indicating funds transferred from other functions to the Iraq War.

The state-level costs in the table are computed based on how much each state contributes in tax revenues, according to IRS data. The local-level costs are based on the state costs, and on relative population and income levels in each location. These numbers were updated for the latest IRS data in May 2005. The population and household amounts are based on Census Bureau estimates: population for July 1, 2005; households for 2004. The taxpayer amount is based on IRS projected taxfilers for the 2005 tax year.

Is the Project for a New American Century Dead?

Today, I ran across this report, Rise and Demise of the "New American Century" by Tom Barry, and while climbing 40 feet in the air to perform the mundane tasks of painting and subsequent brush cleaning, I thought to myself, Finally!

By 2005 PNAC began to fade from the political landscape, and though the website is still functioning, it has been dormant since late that year. But the neoconservatives, together with their Religious Right and military-industrial complex allies, remain prominent actors in shaping the directions of U.S. foreign and military policy--some within government and others from a wide array of neocon-led think tanks, front groups, and policy institutes.

Now that the xenophobic, arrogant, yet anchor NeoCon tenet, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), has been proven fallacious - not only by common sense but by the utter failure of our actions in the Middle East and SW Asia - they boast, Goal Accomplished and Cut and Run becomes the new order of the day as they attempt to protect their pathetic, self-interested political careers.

On Tom Paine, Barry writes:

Although it remains far from clear that the 21st century will be a “new American century,” PNAC’s organizers can rightly claim that the Bush administration largely adopted its neoconservative agenda for foreign policy. PNAC, organized in 1997 by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, set forth a list of priorities immediately after 9/11 for the “war on terrorism”—including a close antiterrorism alliance with Israel, taking out Hezbollah, wiping out the Palestinian intifada and regime change in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

And what a successful foreign policy it has turned out to be.
The convictions of a cabal of stone-thowing eight-year-olds.

Damned Idiots.