What does $87 billion buy?

There's been a lot of discussion about what else we could buy with $87 billion besides the deaths of American soldiers and recruiting millions of Al-Queda terrorists.

In Chicago, we can break that down by how much each ward is contributing.

Each ward has about 60,000 people. That's about 1/4000 of the country.

And 1/4000 of $87 billion is about $21 million.

Which is about the cost of a new high school.

So we could build a new high school in every one of Chicago's 50 wards.

Or we can occupy Iraq.

Thanks, President Bush!

And Congress: don't appropriate any of that money.

Cut off the funding and you'll end the war.

Spend that money on new high schools instead.

(Even though Mayor Daley says that high schools are boring. . . .)