Congressman John Kline's Legacy Of Waste

The current Bu$h administration doesn't include the cost of the war in their budget, instead, every couple of months, an 'emergency' spending bill is submitted to Congress for approval. The last bill brought the cost of the Iraq war to just under $320 BILLION Dollars!

Rep. John Kline(MN-R) has voted in lockstep with Bu$h for each and every bill submitted to Congress (now totalling 320 Billion). Kline has also supported this war since the begining by telling us just how we're bringing democracy to Irag and how great things are going.

$320 BILLION is a hugh amount! Certainly more than the $50 billion that Secretary of Defense Donald ‘Chickenhawk’ Rumsfeld initially predicted in January 2003. This price tag is so large,that it has become an abstraction. So to put it into context:

What John Kline could have funded, created, or done for America with $320 billion:

• Nearly $12,000 for every single person in Iraq (regardless of age).
• $1070.18 for every American (regardless of age) based on current census figures.
• Fully fund global anti-hunger efforts for 12 years. (Source: National Priorities Project
• Give a $100,000 bonus to every public school teacher in America, or
• $320 billion would fund 128,000 new teachers for 50 years at a salary of $50,000 per year. (Source: Ben Tracy WCCO-TV (CBS))
• Implement the Kyoto Protocol in America (Source: Cass Sunstein, author and U. of Chicago Law School professor.)

There’s so much good Congress could have done with $320 Billion besides use it in war to profit big corporations like Halliburton, Bechtel and similar corporations that are now under investigation for misuse of public funds and fraud. The same denfense corporations that give thousands to Congressman John Kline.

John Kline and the GOP Congress could have...

• fully funded the no child left behind program.
• buy up-to-date text books for all schools
• undo the cuts to the Veterans Administration
• help victims and pay for the costs of Katrina
• offset Medicare's costs
• fund community colleges
• invest in research and development
• fund health care for Americans
• end poverty in America

John Kline has take $320 billion dollars and given it to special interests and war profiteers instead of investing it in our future. Let Kline know that as Minnesotans we have better ways to invest $320 Billion. Ways that will provide for real security and a better future for Americans and their children. Put an end to John Kline's fiscal madness: Vote for change.