Re: Space funding (was Re: Hillary needs to quit)

On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:13:35 -0400, "Dano" <janeanddano@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>John Schilling wrote:
>>
>> Total US spending on the Iraq War, 2003 - present, per the
>> Congressional Research Service: $520 billion.

>That is if you believe those numbers.  I don't.  You shouldn't.  Those 
>figures are simply not true or accurate.  Not even close.

>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/wa****ngton/19cost.html?fta=y

>"Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly
$600 
>billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist

>and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion.
The 
>Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2

>trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the

>American occupation continues."

That's *cost*, not *spending*.  You specified spending earlier, so I
compared spending.

Which is appropriate, because spending is something we can actually
measure.  For future reference, when you want to do this sort of bogus
apples-and-oranges comparison in the future, you want to specify "cost"
from the outset.  Cost allows you to include all sorts of stuff that's
not money you've actually spent, and for much of it you can assign
whatever inflated or deflated dollar value best sup****ts your argument.

Spending, any decent accountant can measure with little ambiguity,
which forces the debate to be rather more honest and objective than
you were hoping for.


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