War, even when it’s necessary, is almost always a lose-lose proposition. So it’s good to see articles like the one in today’s Capital Times highlighting the staggeringly large opportunity cost of the war in Iraq, as calculated by two County Board supervisors:

Hulsey and Vedder calculated what those war dollars could have purchased in Dane County, based on the county having 0.15 percent of the U.S. population, which would work out to $1.8 billion in war dollars, or $4,000 for every man, woman and child living here.

The $1.8 billion could pay for, according to the supervisors:

• $450 million for health care for approximately 45,000 county residents who currently don’t have health care coverage.

• $100 million for a laptop computer for every student in Dane County.

• $50 million to buy thousands of acres of land that the county wants to include in the new parks and open space plan.

• $14 million to job train all returning military veterans and the other 14,000 unemployed living here.

• $20 million for a regional mass transit plan, including commuter rail and expanded bus service.

• $13 million to clean up all uncontrolled open sewer outlets going into Madison’s lakes.

That’s still less than half the $1.8 billion. “We could provide adequate affordable housing for all, support education from preschool to university age, provide child care for all working parents,” the letter states.

Posted by Ben Brothers at 12:23 pm, 2 February 2007 and filed under Madison News, War and Peace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.