Monetize Your War: The $$ In Your Hometown

I stumbled upon a website that calculates the amount that you and taxpayers in your county are paying for our current wars.

In my own county of Alameda, CA, we will pay $1.1 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan war costs -- just for 2011.

The number of $1.1 billion (for just one county!) made the war suddenly so concrete to me, and made clear what we're not paying for at a local level as a result: the teachers, police, low-income health care, Pell grants, scholarships, that have been cut from our budget.

What would our nation look like if we weren't paying for war?

Find the costs of war in your county