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An Idea? Maybe Just a Thought.
March 14, 2008
The Congressional Research Service puts the figure at $330 million as the current cost of the War in Iraq per day. This figure in other assessments goes as high as 750 million dollars per day when you include the benefits and care of this conflicts veteran's. Now join me on a trip in my fantasy of the perfect society. The reason I bring up this figure is to point out the shear 'weight' of the number over time and to move in a different direction all together ultimately. Allow me to place a more conservative number than that reported by the Congressional Research Service. I will bring that number down to $250 million dollars per day. This means with the ever so challenging mental math that I must do, every four (4) days of this conflict will eventually and has cost the American Society, yes the, "We the People...," so brilliantly penned will shell out in one form or another, One Billion Dollars. Soak that in folks, every four days our conflict is costing in just a financial sense, One Billion Dollars. The Congressional Research Service and I have not as mentioned earlier added in the absolute financial repercussions of any conflict that will have effects far beyond those of the timeframe of the conflict itself. This additional financial settlement comes in the form of benefits and payments that the government will have to respond to for many for the veteran's entire life. So in the course of 365 days that's 91,250,000,000 not including long term benefits and payments. This average of mine and the one of the Congressional Research Service have not added in the far reaching costs that prevail once a conflict has ended as repercussions of any conflict have effects far beyond those of the timeframe of the conflict. Now for a total stray down an entirely different path and the prime reason for the financial research. Over the course of my life to date I have listened carefully to the "health care" issue. I am after all a baby boomer and one of those individuals, provided I live to my accorded median age, will put the largest burden on society for resources. I am already aware through the horror stories of my elders the confusion and chaos that Medicare brings. The paperwork, the follow-through's, yes through(s) plural, in order to comply for and get payment to your provider and piece of mind for a mind that is slowly loosing its cookies. I am well aware that the Social Security System is a paper-giant distributing essentially IOU's for money it does not have and that lack of funding will again sooner than later crash the Social Security infrastructure to the point of collapse which then will allow more money to be spent in trying to come up with a solution. We are a nation of fingers. Sticking those fingers in various cracks in the dam fooling ourselves into believing it will last another day.
There are give or take a few million 300 million current United States Citizens. If you want to look at the 'weight' of how financially large the dollars expended in Iraq, Afghanistan and our own Upgrades in Security overall read this document* and then wonder as I do why we cannot fund the needed programs in our little corner of the world? Let's do a quick health and education reform. Let's eliminate the lobbyist's, the pharmaceutical companies, the HMO's, the MD's, Ob-Gyn's and all other abbreviations just for now.
What if?
What if we took four days of war costs and gave every single citizen in this country a 1,000,000 dollar health care bank account? Money that could only be used by the individual with the account and only for health care costs for the duration of their lives and costs beyond the scope of the account would be paid for or supplemented by the individual after all, if a mil cannot cure you, you already know it and will have used your devious mind to concoct alternatives.
What if?
What if we gave every citizen who wished a full or more complete education another 1 million dollars in an educational bank account to be used only for the expenses of a secondary education? What I am asking is a drop in the bucket compared to one single other budgetary item, the cost of the conflict in Iraq. A mere 1.2 billion dollars and everyone in the country will have 2 million collecting interest for the expenses of health and education. Perhaps my math is incorrect but could we spare another couple of days to reinvent the Social Security System?
Of course there are the opponents to these suggestions and all of them for one reason or another will say it will not work, it cannot be administered. You will see chaos in physician's expenses and insurance rates, chaos in the pharmaceutical industry, chaos in the college textbook printers, oh . . . the horror, the horror. In my mind it's a no-brainer. 5 years of 300 million, give or take 50 million against two weeks of that conflicts costs to re-boost the morale and the possibilities of life?
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For too long I've messed with the wiring in my head. Now it shorts out more oft than not. But at my age I just sit and enjoy the sparks. RJM '07
Many Exceptional Free and Pay for Images Available here Fotosearch.com
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