In the time it takes to read this article, Illinois taxpayers will spend another $69,000 to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the National Priorities Project. That's $13,800 per minute. And that figure doesn't include the additional costs of the planned surge in U.S. forces announced last month.
Five minutes of our war spending would buy a college education, pay a qualified teacher, cover the cost of major surgery or give a foreclosed family food and shelter.
With Illinois' $51 billion share of Afghanistan and Iraq war costs since 2001, we could provide more than 20 million people with health care, or fund five million college scholarships, 760 thousand elementary teachers for a year or a million new public safety officers.
Cook County taxpayers already spent $22 billion - at a rate of $5,000 per minute - on the wars. That would buy 153,000 affordable housing units, or pay 324,995 elementary school teachers or 435,083 public safety officers for a year.
The City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and cities and towns across the state are in financial crisis and are being forced to cut essential services and lay off workers.
Illinois families face record home foreclosures and job losses. Small businesses' credit has dried up. Education funding is woefully inadequate to the challenges we face.
We can't afford these wars.
We must shift out national priorities to reflect the reality of the crisis at home. Our house is burning right here. The longer we wait, the longer it will be before Illinois families recover from the recession.
We must continue to fight terrorism across the globe, through better intelligence and coordination of information, covert operations and targeted strikes, and a coordinated international police effort. But right now we can't afford the type of massive military occupation and nation building that may not even be the right - and certainly not only - answer to the terrorism threat. After all, there is little the military in Afghanistan could do to stop last month's Al-Qaeda terrorist attempt by a Nigerian national trained in Yemen.
Take a few minutes to think about what you would buy with the next five minutes worth of Illinois war spending. Then do something to bring that money home.