a slice of the debt disaster

In the new Atlantic, Linda Bilmes totals the list of household bills for federal disasters:

So far the United States has spent $275 billion on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. The costs of continuing operations run at $100 billion a year. When one adds in the long-term costs, including interest payments on war debt and disability benefits that we will owe to veterans for decades, the total cost of the war will exceed $1.3 trillion. With the federal government already running a deficit close to $400 billion, we will be forced to borrow to pay most of these costs, saddling our economy with nearly $1 trillion in extra debt, owed primarily to Asian central banks. Under conservative scenarios federal spending on Iraq and hurricane reconstruction would total more than $12,000 per household; over twenty years interest payments alone will come to nearly $5,000 per household.

More, via Kennedy School of Government.