Alabama Reflector
Ralph Chapoco
03/30/2026
Speakers at the event focused exclusively on the war and its financial burden on the country. The U.S. Department of Defense told Congress that the first six days of the war cost about $11.3 billion and the price tag for the first few days alone totaled $5.6 billion, according to a report from the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
Foster said that money could have funded a host of other resources, from Head Start to scholarships for university students.
Taking a figure from the Institute for Policy Studies’ National Priorities Project that the Pentagon estimated that the current conflict in the Middle East will amount to $1 billion per day, Foster said that “For a billion dollars a day, 104 million children could be on Medicaid for one year. For a billion dollars a day, 41.69 million people could be placed in public housing for one year.”
