60 days, 60 stats - #4
Today's statistic is on a different defense topic - ZERO. That's the number of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) found in Iraq, where George W. Bush launched an unfunded war on the premise that they had WMD. Related numbers include 4,805 coalition forces killed, 32,753 wounded, and 110,000 Iraqi civilians killed (that's the official number, many suspect the actual is higher).
Total cost of the war? $3,700,000,000,000. That's $3.7 trillion, kids, and that number is still rising. August 31, 2010 - that's the day that Barack Obama ended the Iraq war he inherited. I agree - Obama can't blame Bush for everything. But that particular $3.7 trillion is fair game, I think.
Here's where US Defense spending is today, compared to the next 15 biggest spenders:
Mitt Romney wants to place a "floor" on defense spending at 4% of GDP, which is roughly 20% of the federal budget. He wants to cut government spending, he wants to balance the budget, he looks at this graph and says "let's explicitly prevent cutting too much from the defense budget."
Total cost of the war? $3,700,000,000,000. That's $3.7 trillion, kids, and that number is still rising. August 31, 2010 - that's the day that Barack Obama ended the Iraq war he inherited. I agree - Obama can't blame Bush for everything. But that particular $3.7 trillion is fair game, I think.
Here's where US Defense spending is today, compared to the next 15 biggest spenders:
Mitt Romney wants to place a "floor" on defense spending at 4% of GDP, which is roughly 20% of the federal budget. He wants to cut government spending, he wants to balance the budget, he looks at this graph and says "let's explicitly prevent cutting too much from the defense budget."