Imagine how many children could be lifted out of poverty. How many bridges and roads could be repaired. But no, that's for suckers, right?
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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In terms of roads, a lot, but probably not as much as you're thinking. The US DOT is allowed like 300 billion in a year.
On the other hand, saving the poorest of the poor is cheap, and 37.5 would make all the difference. The World Food Program wanted 13 this year and didn't get it.
If you are thinking about just straight money sure, but we run on debt. If the US Treasury bonds kept getting sold off because everyone was buying gold to trade oil in Chinese yuan America was going to go bankrupt. That would make more starving kids. This was an attempt to keep the debt machine going for a little while longer before the end. America feeds it's people with debt, not cash right now.
It is in a country that votes 99% every election for the same two warmongering parties.
#WeCouldHaveHadHealthCare
And he's a liar so triple that at minimum.
The Bush administration predicted 50 billion. Iraq cost the US 6 trillion.
But wasn't it so worth it?! /s
Yes, actually. To the villainous scum we call our leaders, it is worth it.
They've been seeding the Middle East with vengeful fury for the last 40+ years. Not only did we ensure a 100% chance of some sort of counter-offensive or rebellion to jumpstart the next war, but we've made doubly sure that they will echo war after war after war forever as new Muslim teens are raised and given a guiding finger at the US for all of life's troubles, not that they're entirely wrong.
So up up up goes defense spending and up up up goes the war bonds and up up up goes the petrol, forever. This is how the US war machine works.
[This ]
cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives to create
I guess all the data centers eating your local water supply are better because…smart machine thinks good? What the fuck is this timeline
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Remember this number when they say they can't afford any social programs ...
They can't afford any social program after all the money they spend on this war.
Taxpayers: "$37.5b 😵💫"
Heggy: "$37.5b so far!"
Really. If this were another Afghanistan, we're like a couple percent of the way through.
Even if that weren't a blatant lie, that's only the direct cost of the operation. Not what it cost the country (through the massive fuel cost increases and the knock on effect to the cost of everything else from that, the fertilizer shortages and upcoming food price hike with the subpar harvest, etc)
I don't understand why people think this is a good use of their tax money. Everyone complains about state taxes when it is much less and pays for everything you see and use. Then you have federal taxes which are a massive black hole.
Yeah and the rest pal
FWIW we've been seeing that amount be advertised for months. So either people talking about the fact that "the war having cost $40bn so far" were wrong months ago, or this number is under-evaluated for political reasons. Or both.
We were burning over ten billy a month during the Iraq War.
I have no sympathy for Americans caring about the tax payer cost while ignoring their complicity in imperialist wars (yes, it is plural). If you are not protesting as hard the annexation and extraction of Venezuela's oil, the embargo of Cuba (shit, I am getting tired of listing crimes against humanity), you are not protesting war, you are protesting losing and you should not expect anyone in the world to feel sorry for you.
This is what we expect from Americans though. They decry the loss of American lives, even when those specific people were involved in murdering people who aren't and don't want to be American.
You'll notice that people from other places don't talk that way. Europeans don't talk about "French lives," Japanese don't talk about "Japanese lives," and Iranians don't talk about "Iranian lives." It's a uniquely American thing and it's all about an ingrained sense of American exceptionalism.
Seems cheap for the amount of hardware expended. I would not be surprised if there is another set of books involved.
I bet the decimal is at least one place to the right.
everything else in that country is being forcibly moved to the right
It does seem low, doesn't it? It might add up, that's a bit less than 20,000 2 million dollar missiles, and a lot of it is actually going to be on labour or other things. It is a more impressive figure when you consider how long this has been going on.
Not to mention, the weapons being used are niche and pretty hard to replace on any reasonable timeline. It's not the same as expending the same value in concrete or grain.
costs that much to do nothing lol.
the clips i saw from those hearings are embarrassing and sum up everything wrong with our milquetoast government.
if this guy deserves to be in the position he's in then ask him to name at least 10 valid reasons that the iran 'war' is more important than feeding poverty stricken american children. i put war in parenthesis since iran is incapable of fighting back since we're 6k miles away.
as a bonus question ask him how long it'd take to drive a ford mustang that distance @ full throttle when considering an unlimited tank of gas. should be a cakewalk for someone in that position of power.
OMG this real?
E: Sadly no
He looks like every college rapist ever
He looked 40 in highschool. Weird.
Shame. That would have had real "Paul Ryan likes RATM" energy.
Mfer looked worse in the real photo.
Awww darn I was hoping it was real, but I was having a hard time verifying :(
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Hey, you could just not attack and cost 0. But USA likes wars, likes killing people and complain about the costs.
So better be prepared to find some sponsors. Because why should the taxpayer finance Trumps follies?
Everyone is focusing on the taxpayer cost, which is of course exorbitant. But try instead thinking about how many private jets the weapon manufacturers and politicians in their pocket are getting out of it.
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Australia's total NBN build out cost ~US$36 billion (AU$51 billion) for comparison. That's including rolling parts of it out twice since we half-arsed some of it the first time.
Wasn't it reported higher than that for the first month alone ?
And yet Hegseth still has his job. I want my money back.
And what do we have to show for it? That’s what I thought….
Lol you weren't supposed to benefit from this. They were. And they did.
"Every gun that is made..."
Hegseth has alcohol derangement syndrome.
America is being run by dangerous clowns 😬
That's actually a lot less than I expected.
Because he lied about the actual number.
Pretty high chance it is inaccurate.
Yeah but it also raised prices around the world, including in the US, and this money could have gone to its inhabitants instead, so in reality it has costed the American tax payer and many of its companies much more. Also, he's a lying piece of shit so who knows what it actually costs.
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