Tim Fernholz and Jim Tankersley put the $3 trillion price tag for the war on terror in perspective:
More than actual security, we bought a sense of action in the face of what felt like an existential threat. We staved off another attack on domestic soil. Our debt load was creeping up already, thanks to the early waves stages of baby-boomer retirements, but we also hastened a fiscal mess that has begun, in time, to fulfill bin Laden’s vision of a bankrupt America. If left unchecked, our current rate of deficit spending would add $9 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. That’s three Osamas, right there.
Douthat minimized the fiscal cost of bin Laden earlier in the week.
The Dish 