What to do with $25 billion...

In two months, we have spent $25 billion on the war in Iran. They say that is an underestimate.

The highest estimate to provide free health care in the US, for two months, to everybody under eighteen is $17 billion, for two months. More likely it would be half of this war in the same time period.

Universal health Care in the US would save between 18,000 and 35,000 lives, just over the course of these two months. What’s more, it would SAVE DOLLARS. Between $2 trillion and $5 trillion over ten years, because of reduced administrative costs. My brain cannot compute such numbers, but that makes $83 billion to $108 billion, over two months. Let’s make that real. It would save us three times the cost of war.

Why do we make these choices? Because it does comes down to choices, doesn’t it? War kills people and destroys their homes. We don’t even have numbers about the last two months. War creates massive carbon emissions, accelerating the climate crisis. It destroys habitats, human and otherwise. It pollutes the air, the water and the soil. It does lasting damage to the environment. That is not speculation.

An Iran nuclear weapon, if deployed at an unknown time in the future, would be horribly damaging, of course. But that is speculation.