Billion with a B

So Trump is asking for $200 billion dollars on top of whatever the regime is already spending to bomb the hell out of Iran for no clear purpose, against all the accumulated strategic wisdom of the past 47 years and counter to the successful negotiations his own people were conducting (though they were likely faking). 

Billion is a hard number to wrap the human mind around. Someone on BlueSky this morning said the U.S. war on Iran was costing us $1.3 million per minute. When I do the math on $2 billion a day (1,440 minutes in a day divided into $2 billion per day), it comes out closer to $1.4 per minute. So yeah. That's not far off. 

$200 billion will last only 100 days at that rate of consumption. And as we all have to assume, $2 billion is only covering the most obvious and direct costs. 

As Jacob T. Levy said on BlueSky,

Is $200 billion a lot to fight a war that’s already been decisively, comprehensively, bigly won? It seems like a lot.

As soon as the regime's $200 billion ask was reported, reaction was swift, countering with — as it should — all the other ways that money could be spent:

Remember when DOGE was destroying foreign aid because it was supposedly too expensive? The entire US foreign aid budget in 2024 was $62 billion.  
Max Boot

Like ten years of annual federal transit spending
bikepedantic

They haven't even given a reason for the war, and are asking for an amount of money that would be like funding the whole EPA for 22 years.
Costa Samaras

$200B, the Pentagon's insane ask for the illegal Iran war, is comparable to all planned spending on energy and climate over *10 years* in Biden's signature bill, which Trumpists almost completely repealed last summer.
Kevin J. Kircher

$200b would buy 100 million ebikes and reduce American gasoline consumption by like a third.
David Weiskopf @dave.bzky.team

GOP and Trump said we didn't have the money to extend ACA health care subsidies- and now millions have no health care coverage and many more are facing crushing costs. So hundreds of billions of dollars to bomb Iran but nothing to help Americans pay for health care.
Nathan Newman

Trump wants $1,600 per household to pay for his "excursion" in Iran. That's equal to 800 Minnesota frauds.
Dean Baker

I guess we can think of this $200 billion (800 Minnesota frauds) as the cost of Trump's decision to nix Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran. And it will likely get higher.
Dean Baker

It would take anywhere from $20–$80 billion to end homelessness in America.
@mauratwit.bsky.social

Meanwhile, news has also come out that the U.S. debt has reached new astronomical heights, as it always does when Republicans are in the White House. 

Because Republicans are the ones who are good at handling the economy and run the government like its a business.