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Originally Posted by electricron
$14 Trillion over 20 years calculates at an average of $700 Billion per year. So you are suggestion the entire Pentagon budget was spend in Afghanistan the last 20 years?  |
That $14 trillion number probably includes interest on debt, interest on debt taken to pay back debt, VA payments, and so on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron
$14 Trillion paid to military contractors include factory workers, investors, transportation teamsters and stevedores, military trainers and instructors, housing contractors, and farmers feeding everyone - many of them your fellow citizens living in the \good old USA and not in Afghanistan. It is like a pig stye, once the pigs are let loose at the public feeding trough everyone gets dirty.
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And infrastructure doesn't do that? After all, with Build American requirements, the materials used are also benefiting the US. I couldn't find a number, but a document says that the $30 billion in NE Corridor improvements will generate $8 billion every year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron
That $839 Million is the 2005 estimate for the costs to improve just one Amtrak rail corridor. Should we add the $2 Billion already spent on the Illinois Lincoln corridor, the $2 Billion already spent on the California Caltrain corridor, the $1 Billion spend on the Washington Cascades corridor, the $1 Billion spent on the Michigan Wolverine corridor, not to mention the over $10 Billion already spent on improving Amtrak's NEC and the additional $10 Billion yet to be spent on the new Hudson River tunnels the last 20 years?
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That's not even $30 billion dollars. Even conservative estimates have the cost of those wars at $2+ trillion dollars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron
Whether you think the costs of these projects is worth it or not, the costs are real, ignoring and sweeping them under the carpet is a disservice to any rational discussion of the merits of these projects.
And the US government can not continue to spend twice as much money as it collects in taxes forever. Take a few minutes , or hours to read
https://www.pgpf.org/the-current-federal-budget-deficit |
I think that's kind of the point. Cutting the military budget and redirecting even 10% of that reduction to transit infrastructure annually could create wonders.