America's Hunger, Housing and Health Care Solutions are in Iraq and Afghanistan

Imagine the United States as a nation without any homeless, hungry or uninsured citizens.

As the chart here shows, the money the US has spent in Iraq and Afghanistan could provide a year of health care coverage for America's 45 million uninsured citizens, three years of food our 35 million hungry, and five years of shelter in public housing for the 3 million homeless Americans.

Even after feeding, housing, and insuring every American in need, we'd still have enough money left over to take everyone in Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan out to a nice dinner... just to patch things up.

It's even worth noting that the annual US military budget outside of these two wars (about $439 billion in 2007) would still be equivalent to the combined annual military budgets of China, Japan, France, UK, Germany, Italy, South Korea, India, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Turkey, Brazil and Spain.

newsthemagazine.com [Source figures: Annual health care spending by Americans according to the New Yorker, 2005, $5267 per capita (about $1.56 trillion). The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimated 3 million people in the US were homeless for at least some part of 2002. From 2003 New York City Housing Authority figures, the cost of public housing can be $2160 per occupant per year. Based on the 2000 Census and the USDA report, "Household Food Security in the United States, 2002," it is estimated there are 35 million hungry people in the US. World Food Program food rations cost 29 cents per day, while the average daily expenditure on food in the developed world is $10. The figure of $3.55 per day per person was used to estimate the cost of feeding underfed Americans. Most charities operate at much lower costs.]