Young Oak Kim: “I rise today because the cost of this war is unbearable, and it is time we finally bring this to an end. I know we have…”

“I rise today because the cost of this war is unbearable, and it is time we finally bring this to an end. I know we have talked a lot about that cost. It is something that the American people are feeling every single day. But I wanted to take a few minutes to really zoom in on what this war is costing us and why this War Powers Resolution by my colleague Senator Schiff is so important. I want you to remember three numbers when we think about what this war has cost us in the first 60 days: $25 billion, 47 months, and $450. I want to go through these three numbers. Let's start with $25 billion. That is how much this war has cost the American people so far, according to the Acting Comptroller of the Department of Defense, and that very well may be an understatement. Now, $11.3 billion of that was spent in the first 6 days of this war. For $25 billion, we could pay for a yearlong extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies that the Republicans cut last year. In New Jersey, that would mean that the nearly 70,000 people so far who have dropped their health insurance plans could afford them yet again. It could easily restore full funding to the National Institutes of Health, which was cut by nearly 20 percent in this recent Trump budget.”