Significant Digits
Item One:
Elke Sisco links to this superbly reasonable message to the Shrub from Paul Kerschen of metameat/cactus log:
Subject: The cost of the Iraq war
Dear Mr. President:
Yesterday the media reported that you have made a supplemental budget request to Congress of $74.7 billion to pay for the current war in Iraq. Your budget for fiscal year 2003 assumes total federal receipts of $2,048.1 billion. My personal income tax accounts for .000000040% of that figure. Applying this percentage to the amount of funding you have requested from Congress, I find that I personally have been asked to pay $29.94 for the Iraq war.
The Mercy Corps, a charitable organization with which you may be familiar, has established an Iraq Emergency Fund to help alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe that the war has already caused, and which will only worsen in coming weeks. Lack of food, clean water, power, and medical supplies will place millions of people at risk of hunger and disease, and a refugee crisis of massive proportions is assured. I have made a charitable donation to this fund in the amount of $199.62. As I am in the fifteen-percent tax bracket, this will reduce my federal tax liability for the next year by the precise amount which you have charged me for your war.
I oppose this invasion in the strongest possible terms. Neither my belief that America must be protected from unconventional threats, nor my immense respect for the American men and women who are currently risking their lives on your orders, alter my conviction that you and your advisers have conceived this war recklessly, in bad faith, with insufficient thought given to possible consequences, insufficient support given to diplomatic alternatives, and appallingly little regard for the sanctity of human life. You will not wage it in my name, and you will not wage it with my financial support.
Sincerely yours,
Paul Kerschen
Paul also includes a handy calculator so American taxpayers can figure out their own contribution to the war, and the appropriate charitable donation amount.
Item Two
David Weinberger and Paolo run the numbers over dinner in Venice:
"...while the US is budgeting $75+ billion for the war, Iraq's GDP is $60 billion. We could buy the entire country for less than it'll take to conquer it."
