It's stories like this that really make me mad at the United States.

Iraq is costing the US an average of $4 billion dollars per month. Afghanistan adds another $700 900 million per month on top of that. The above figure also doesn't take into account restructuring costs in Iraq. (new figures gleaned from this article).

So, $4.7 4.9 billion dollars per month are being spent on military occupation of nations that a) they don't have the right to be occupying, and b) that don't want them there in the first place.

But think about it. This year alone, they've spent over $20 billion dollars on these two countries. That's $100 per person in the United States aged 15-64 (there's 186,377,588 of them according to the CIA factbook).

According to this article by the BBC, 40 million Americans lack any kind of health insurance. Take the amount they've wasted on military spending in the last 6 months, and divide that by the number of Americans needing health care insurance? $505 per person per month, which is more than enough to pay for basic coverage.

But wait.. there's more! 13% of the population of the United States lives below the poverty line. That's 36,473,123 people. Why not give them a helping hand? Give them each a $500 month stipend to get them back on their feet -- you'll still have funds left over.

I could go on, but it'd be a waste of time. The US government just doesn't believe in spending money on its own citizens.

Update: This article at the Washington Post sheds some interesting light on the Bush administration since the election. Apparently, they've done the exact opposite of everything they promised to do.