On May 30, 2010, at 10:06am, the National Priorities Project Cost of War counter – designed to count the total money appropriated for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – reached the $1 trillion mark.

To date, $747.3 billion have been appropriated for the U.S. war in Iraq and $299 billion for the war in Afghanistan.

The pending supplemental making its way through Congress will add an estimated $37 billion to the current $136.8 billion total spending for the current fiscal year, ending September 30.

What Can You Get For $1 Trillion?

Federal Funding For Higher Education — $1 trillion would give the maximum Pell Grant award ($5,500) to all 19 million U.S. college and university students for the next 9 years.

For $1 trillion, you could provide:

294,734,961 people with health care for one year, or

21,598,789 public safety officers for one year, or

17,149,392 music and arts teachers for one year, or

7,779,092 affordable housing units, or

440,762,472 children with health care for one year, or

137,233,969 head start places for children for one year, or

16,427,497 elementary school teachers for one year, or

1,035,282,468 homes with renewable electricity for one year

WHAT DOES $1 TRILLION LOOK LIKE?

$1,000,000,000,000 (“1” and twelve zeros)

If you earned $1 million a year, it would take you 1 million years to earn $1 trillion.

In Dollar Bills:

If you converted $1 trillion into one dollar bills, and laid them end to end, it would reach 98 million miles. That’s 4,000 times around the Earth. Its 205 trips to the Moon. And back. It’s more than the distance to the Sun.

In Silver Dollars:

If someone handed you a silver dollar every second, it would take almost 32,000 years for them to hand you $1 trillion. Not that you could hold them – they’d weigh nearly 9 million tons.

About NPP’s Cost of War Counters

NPP’s Cost of War counters provide information on the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for each of the 50 states.

The counters also provide cost amounts and “trade-off” data for hundreds of U.S. cities and towns.

To see NPP’s Cost of War counters and our Notes & Sources, visit http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

The National Priorities Project (NPP) is a 501(c)(3) research organization that analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent.  Located in Northampton, MA, since 1983, NPP focuses on the impact of federal spending and other policies at the national, state, congressional district and local levels.  For more information, visit http://www.nationalpriorities.org.

Contact: Christopher Hellman, Communications Liaison, 413.584.9556 (o); 703.945.3950, or

Jo Comerford, Executive Director, 413.584.9556 (o); 413.559.1649 (c)

National Priorities Project office located at:
243 King Street
Suite 109
Northampton, MA, 01060
United States