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The view of how much money this actually is is seriously skewed in these comments. US GDP is around $19 trillion. The cost of this program is 0.1% of GDP. For c
by Futurebot 9y ago
The view of how much money this actually is is seriously skewed in these comments. US GDP is around $19 trillion. The cost of this program is 0.1% of GDP. For comparison, the B2 bomber cost $2.4B itself, and the Iraq was cost upwards of $12B a month. One can argue "we shouldn't spend on those either" (and I agree), but it's impossible to cogently argue that this is a lot of money. Like the budgets of the NEA and many other very cheap programs, it's an absolute pittance. A pittance.
- supergarfield 9y ago0.1% of GDP is actually fairly large. In isolation it's fine, but government probably have dozens or hundreds of similar "small" programs we never think about. So sure, wars cost a lot more money, but running a hundred programs that each cost you 2 billion dollars will also be very expensive. Not fundamentally disagreeing, I just think it's easy to miss the full picture if you conclude that 0.1% of GDP is negligible.
- paulddraper 9y agoI saw 0.1% and freaked out.
- jaquers 9y agoYour parent was off by an order of magnitude: $2B / $19,000B == 0.01% Agree with both points, 0.1% is not nothing - that's what NASA scrapes by on. FWIW, the article mentions a ramp up in spending going up to the census year - so I take it that this is not an annual cost.