just HOW expensive was 9/11 to the federal government?

[unblock]

let's put aside the obvious and widespread loss in terms of human life and private property and economic activity and even state and local governments for the moment and examine on SOLELY the financial impact of 9/11 on the FEDERAL government.

let's use the banana republican's logic that every expense is entirely required because of 9/11. no, there's absolutely no pork or waste or fraud here, the grown-ups are in charge....

let's see, for starters, we went from a projected surplus that was SO HUGE, the fed chief actually worried publicly about the harm of paying off the ENTIRE debt and still having extra money leftover to ANNUAL deficits that INCREASE the debt level by an additional $400-500 BILLION each year. total cost over just 10 years on the order of $10 TRILLION or so.

the aid they gave to new york city and the hush money, er, i mean, assistance they gave to the 9/11 families seems a mere pitance compared to these numbers. come to think of it, most of the money for the 9/11 families was from private donations anyway, wasn't it?

then, we've lost many liberties and freedoms. all absolutely required because of 9/11. over two centuries of freedoms brought to a halt because of one single attack. 19 people.

rampant fear of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. nevermind that the 9/11 terrorists were armed with nothing but package cutters.

two signicant wars. so far. newcons have promised 40 years of war.

then, despite the $10 trillion or so mentioned above, social security is now in crisis according to the republicans. we need to spend another several TRILLION dollars to privatize part of it, otherwise it would go belly up. remember, before 9/11, they said everything was so great that they HAD to cut taxes and such, so surely social security's crisis is due to 9/11. all was fine just a few years ago.

i'm sure you can add to the list. and remember, there was other costs incurred by


my point is that the 9/11 excuse is WAAAAAAAAAY out of proportion to the actual event. yes, of course, it was a tragedy, but what's been spent and what's happening is wildly out of whack.


just imagine what it would have cost if they were armed with something more than package cutters and had killed more than just 3,000 people and a few buildings.

[leesa]

1. Do you mean how much did it cost them to pull it off?

Or the aftereffects?

[Wilms]

2. .

:thumbsup:

[bvar22]

3. 9-11 didn't cost very much in the National Sense.

However, Bush*s irrational overreaction was very expensive.

Bill Clinton caught, prosecuted, and jailed the original WTC Bombers for less than $5Million. (pulled that number out of my ass, but it couldn't have cost very much since he used existing agencies.)

[TrustingDog]

4. and the expensive investigation on Bill's peepee cost...

about three times (or thereabouts) more than the 911 commission. topsy turvey land

[unblock]

5. exactly. what does it say about us that 1 attack can cost all this?

if the banana republicans are to be believed (hah!), our national security, financial stability, and our freedoms were dangling by a thread for over 2 centuries. how lucky we were that no one attacked us before :wtf: