Sean Patrick Maloney: “This chart here shows the Federal spending on the Iraq war versus other priorities in the 2008 budget authorization. The…”

“This chart here shows the Federal spending on the Iraq war versus other priorities in the 2008 budget authorization. The Iraq war is costing, the request, twice as much as is in the Federal budget for transportation for the entire country, and it is five times more than what is in the budget now for the National Institutes of Health. It is seven times more than the college tuition assistance. So this is really costing Americans a great deal of money that could be spent on other priorities. This chart here shows that the administration wants to spend $435 million on Iraq every day. And each year that money could be used to enroll for an entire year 57,000 children in Head Start, fund an additional 150,000 Pell Grants for low-income students for an entire year, save 290,000 families from losing their homes. It could hire for an entire year an additional 10,000 Border Patrol agents. It could hire more than 9,000 police officers for a year, and provide health insurance for 330,000 low-income children through the SCHIP program.”