Who's gonna pay?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, a war on Iraq would cost $9-13 billion just to get started, $6-9 billion per month, $5-7 billion to return troops following the hostilities, and $1-4 billion per month for a good, ol' fashioned military occupation. So, with the economy in dire straights, who's going to pay for this war?

Congressman Peter Stark has an answer:

School kids will pay. There’ll be no money to keep them from being left behind - way behind.

Seniors will pay. They’ll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war.

Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won’t be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war.

Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights.

Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality.

And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, women’s rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right.

Stark goes on, "what greatly saddens me at this point in our history is my fear that this entire spectacle has not been planned for the well being of the world, but for the short-term political interest of our President."