By National Priorities Project
Friday, October 7, 2011 will mark ten years since the beginning of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In light of an already increasing level of interest, the National Priorities Project (NPP) has released new numbers, analysis and tools around the costs of a decade at war.
l
You can find them all here, or check them out below one by one.
Cost of War Counters – A running tally of the cost to date of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with total war spending, updated every millisecond. New: see the counters roll for the entire nation, your state, county, Congressional District and/or city/town.
Trade Offs – Explore the magnitude and meaning of U.S. war costs using our interactive trade off tool. New: we’ve updated the tool to include new trade-offs focused on housing, an annual grocery bill and a family’s yearly energy bill.
Making Sense of War Dollars – A series of visual stories comparing various war-related funding and military spending figures to other budget numbers – such as veterans’ benefits, stimulus funding, Pell grants, and state budget shortfalls, to name a few.
Top Ten Military Spending Numbers(you need to know) – New from NPP: here’s a new list of numbers you ought to know about the U.S. military.
What’s At Stake? – 50 current state-level briefs focused on the local impact of war spending. Check out what your state could have funded if it re-directed war-related federal income tax dollars toward Head Start, health insurance, renewable energy, higher education and more.
NPP Publications – Factsheets and analyses related to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon budget, and security-related spending.
NPP Blogs – A timely look at issues related to war spending and national security, featuring “How Safe Are You? What Almost $8 Trillion in National Security Spending Bought You†written by NPP’s Christopher Hellman for Tomdispatch.org.
War Costs by State – NPP used Google Map technology to explore a state’s cost of war and rate of poverty combined with the number of homeless individuals and the percent of people with food insecurity, including people who cut meals or worried about running out of food. Use NPP’s data to tell your own story and share it!
Check outIf I Had a Trillion Dollars, a national youth video contest.
For real-time updates, connect to Cost of War through Facebook and Twitter.
The National Priorities Project (NPP) is a 501(c)(3) research organization that analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent. Located in Northampton, MA, since 1983, NPP focuses on the impact of federal spending at the national, state, congressional district and local levels. For more information, please visit http://nationalpriorities.org/.