The stimulus package that just passed both legislative houses of the government is set at $789bn. This cost, along with previous stimulus packages and the guarantees the government has made to back some financial institutions could bring the total costs of this bailout, in a worst case scenario, to over 9 trillion dollars.
Just to put things in perspective, here is an analysis by Jim Bianco of Bianco Research of what the largest historical US government projects cost in today’s dollars.
• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billionTOTAL: $3.92 trillion
The New Deal, which was created to get us out of the worst depression this country has experienced and which included the construction of numerous parks, roads, buildings, dams, power plants, airports and other projects which are still in use today would ONLY cost $500 billion today. That’s less than 2/3 of the plan President Obama has managed to push through congress this week, and only a drop in the bucket compared to all the guarantees the government has made.
We can only hope that this money doesn’t go to bonuses, office remodels for CEOs and other perks for the upper class like the last round of bailout money did.