The (hidden) costs of the Afghanistan war

FEE’s JP Cortez writes, “According to the Associated Press, through April, more than 172,000 people (American and otherwise) have died in the course of the War in Afghanistan. The estimated amount of direct Afghanistan and Iraq war costs that the United States has debt-financed: is estimated at more than $2 trillion.

The estimated principal and interest owed by 2050: up to $6.5 trillion.

The human costs of the Afghan War are well known. Its inflationary costs are less understood. https://t.co/JMh8ovrEsk

— FEE (@feeonline) January 1, 2022

This war, as with much of government spending, isn’t paid by money the government has. The money is borrowed into existence.

The financial costs of debt-financed spending by today’s decision makers will burden future generations. The pain of printing trillions of unbacked bills isn’t felt immediately, so the gravity of the action is subtle, but the end result is unavoidable.”

Read the entire column.