Good Morning,

“What would you do with $37 billion?”

This question was asked in a local newspaper over seven years ago as we were invading Iraq. The figure was the George W. Bush administration’s estimate of what the war would cost us taxpayers start to finish. I remember looking at the number and dreaming of the possibilities; the educational programs we could fund with that kind of money… the r&d we could put into finding viable and ecologically sound alternatives to oil.

Well, how does $900 billion strike you? That’s one estimate of what you and I have spent making war – and a big mess out of a small one - in Iraq. And we’re not out of there yet. What would you do with $900 billion? (To give the number some perspective that’s 900 thousand million dollars.) Wow. The possibilities are staggering. Think about it. Go ahead, dream about it.

I love my country but I am not proud of it. The resources; human, intellectual, material and economic we have squandered being bullies around the world, recently and historically is just awful. And the bad will we have created, especially in the Middle East – ugh!

We’re all in this together, we all share in the responsibility. Can you and I change the course of this country? I believe we can. I have a few ideas…

Gordon Bunker