Today I saw a fascinating article on AmericaBlog about what can be bought or accomplished with $611 billion. The amount represents how much the US has spent on the Iraq War to date, plus the President’s most recent spending request. According to the Boston Globe, you can accomplish a lot with $611 billion.

• Almost 18 months’ of free gas for all Americans. US drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the United States, for about 530 days.
• Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road. With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.
• Nearly 14 million years’ worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard. At published rates for this year, $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free rides for a year at Harvard University. Tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts-Boston could be paid for over 53 million years.
• More than a year’s worth of Medicare benefits for everyone. In fiscal 2008, Medicare benefits will total $454 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation summary. The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health benefit program for poor children.
• A real war on poverty. According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth. At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world’s poor for seven years.

So which do you think would be a greater benefit to mankind, the Iraq War or feeding and educating the world’s poor? Just a little food for thought.

So what would you do with $611 billion if you were in charge of the US government’s appropriations?