Romper
Cameron Norsworthy
04/19/2017
Volatile international relations between the United States and other nations have brought the possibility of war to the forefront of public discussion. Not only is the threat of violence an unsettling shift, but the potential cost of war also weighs heavily on Americans' minds. So how much has war cost American taxpayers up to this point? Taking a look at the United States' allocation of funds over the past 15 years reveals that war costs are actually nothing new for Americans; Since Sept. 11 2001, trillions of dollars have been spent.
The National Priorities Project (NPP) has a running counter that calculates the total cost of war since 2001. You can watch live while the numbers rise. The results are staggering: Every hour, taxpayers in United States are paying $8.36 million for war, the NPP reports. Seeing as the counter, "include[s] all of the funding that has been appropriated by Congress through fiscal year 2015," President Donald Trump's war spending in particular has not been taken into account. Still, a grand sum of "$1.64 trillion has been allocated through the Overseas Contingency Operations (war) fund" through 2015 — amounts that "include both military and non-military OCO spending, such as reconstruction and funds for the Department of State."
