Via War Room, we are now spending about 9.7 billion dollars a month on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan..

Whenever I see numbers this big- I like to put it in perspective and I usually use the 37 million and growing men, women, and children living in poverty in the US. But first you should check out what poverty means as far as the feds go.

9.7 billion dollars a month would:

Give every man, woman and child living in poverty $259 a month. In Washington state, the TANF cash pay outs per month are only $220 per person, in a state like Georgia the payouts are only $120.

Or

Give every man, woman and child living at 150% of poverty or below(21% of the population, by the way) $149 a month in food stamps. Currently the average monthly food stamp benefit per person is only $86 and only applies to families that are at 130% of poverty or less.

Or

Every adult over age 18 living at 200% of the federal poverty guidelines or less that does not have a high school diploma or a college degree (about 50 million people) could recieve an additional $2200 per year in FSEOG grants to go to school.

Or

Give every one of the 85 million people who do not have health insurance $112 per month towards the purchase of it and let them buy into state Medicaid plans with the money.

Priorities folks.

(Just so you know- I have been geeking out over 2004 census records for these numbers- my math may be off a bit but the census reports are always very interesting to read)