Report: End War, Close Deficit
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The Bay Citizen
Aaron Glantz
01/13/2011
California's hulking, $26.4 billion budget deficit would almost completely disappear if the federal government gave the state money that's currently being spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new report released to today by the National Priorities Project, a Massachusetts-based think tank.
"It's just crazy. It's a lot of money when you look at it," the organization's director Jo Comerford said.
California taxpayers are spending $13.6 billion on the war in Afghanistan this year and $8.2 billion on the war in Iraq.
Tax-payers in San Francisco will spend $582.3 million on the wars this year, the National Priorities Project said, significantly more than the city's $379 million projected budget gap.
Since September 11, 2001, the organization said, taxpayers in San Francisco and the East Bay have spent $4.3 billion on the war in Iraq and $1.6 billion on the war in Afghanistan.
