In a recent speech, Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich asked, "Why does America have hundreds of billions to ruin the health and take the lives of innocent people in Iraq but no money to provide health care for all Americans? Why would America spend hundreds of billions to retire Saddam Hussein, but no money to protect the retirement security of its own people?" The citizens of New York City should be asking the same questions.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented the city's budget in January with a $3 billion budget gap for the next fiscal year. To deal with this shortfall, he is calling for major belt tightening, saying that the budget shortfalls are forcing "hardworking people to dig deeper into their pockets." While Bloomberg succumbs to cheap rhetoric about sacrifices, one American institution is not tightening its belt or digging deep into its pockets: The Pentagon.

This year President Bush will ask Congress to pass an almost $400 billion military budget, a figure six times larger that what Russia--the world's next biggest military power--spends. The U.S. spends 26 times more than all of our "enemies" combined: Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Even before the costs of war against Iraq are added in, the United States spends more than one billion dollars a day on the military, while a whole spectrum of domestic needs are severely under-funded. In New York State, 19 percent of children live in poverty, 15 percent of citizens live without health care and 42 percent of tenants spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. A recent article in The New York Times reports that companies in New York City have eliminated 175,000 jobs in the last two years. And the future does not look bright. Experts who write for New York STAT, a newsletter on the city economy, advise business leaders that "with the war in Iraq looming, along with the spike in oil prices, businesses should continue to put off hiring."

To this dismal economic picture, we add the costs of war in Iraq, and additional spending on post-war occupation and rebuilding the country to Washington's liking. Estimates of the cost of war in Iraq range anywhere from $48 billion to $1.6 trillion. The House Budget Committee estimated in September 2002 that the war would cost between $48 and 93 billion and last one or two months. They did not factor in peacekeeping and occupation, foreign assistance, humanitarian assistance or the impact war would have on trade or oil prices. Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus did a more comprehensive assessment that factored in all those variables and his best-case scenario estimate is for a $120 billion war; worst-case scenario is a $1.6 trillion war.

To put these enormous numbers into some perspective and highlight the trade-offs Americans are being forced to make, I did an analysis for Brooklyn War Resist League on the costs of war to people in New York City:

* One day of war in Iraq = The NYC Budget deficit for FY 2003 ($1.3 billion)

* One day of war in Iraq = One year budget of NYC Child Services ($1.3 billion a year)

* 8 hours of war in Iraq = One year budget of NYC Homeless Services ($360 million)

* 14 hours of war in Iraq would close the MTA's budget gap and stave off price hikes and service cuts

* 99 minutes of war in Iraq = One year budget for Brooklyn Public Libraries (2000 budget is $76 million)

* 1 second of war in Iraq = NYC Education budget per child ($9,736 per child per year).

Mark Twain, the great American writer and anti-imperialist, was famous for saying, "When all you have in your toolbox are hammers, all your problems look like nails." In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the United States needs to expand its foreign policy toolbox so that when crises arise, resorting to military force is the last option, not the first. Until then, we will continue to pay the costs. And more and more we do not pay just in dollars, tighter belts and emptier pockets. We pay in limited freedoms, we pay in hijacked democracy, we pay in fear of "blowback" for unjust U.S. foreign policy, and we pay in a less secure world.

(Frida Berrigan, a former staffperson for Baltimore Action for Justice in the Americas, is a Senior Research Associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center, a project of the World Policy Institute.)

See also William D. Nordhaus, "Iraq: The Economic Consequences of War," New York Review of Books (12/5/02)
www.nybooks.com/articles/15850