I often hear about the evils of Halliburton -- we went into Iraq to make Halliburton rich, Halliburton bribed somebody, Halliburton this, Halliburton that, etc. So I thought it would be kind of fun to point out that there are other organizations making money off the US government than Halliburton -- and put some random figures together to induce perspective. For comparison, when possible, I've tried to supply figures on an annual basis. If you, gentle reader, have any better figures than these, feel free supply them.

$100 million - Annual waste by Ayers, Obama, & others in Annenberg Challenge
$106 million - Annual Halliburton overcharges 2003-2005
$295 million - Income from dues to the NEA in 2005
$336 million - 2007 taxpayer dollars for Planned Parenthood
$400 million - Estimated total cost of Ted Stevens' (R-AK) "Bridge to Nowhere"
$430 million - Annual earmarks for Barack Obama (D-IL), 2006-2008
$6 billion - Annual revenue, Countrywide Financial
$14 billion - Current proposed bailout for US auto industry
$17 billion - Pork in 12 appropriations acts examined by CAGW, 2008
$20 billion - Annual budget, NASA
$31 billion - US defense revenue, Boeing
$32 billion - TOTAL annual revenue from all sources, Halliburton
$36 billion - US defense revenue, Lockheed Martin
$43 billion - Annual revenue, Freddie Mac
$45 billion - Annual revenue, Fannie Mae
$51 billion - Bailout Chris Dodd and Democrats funneled to Countrywide
$60 billion - Medicare fraud (not including Medicaid fraud), 2008
$90 billion - Annual estimated cost of Iraq war* ($448/5 years)
$181 billion - Annual revenue, General Motors
$225 billion - TARP bailout to 9 largest banks ($25 billion each)
$586 billion - One year of Social Security
$671 billion - One year of Medicare and Medicaid spending
$700 billion - Amount of money in TARP slush funds destined for unnamed companies

People are (rightly) concerned about the taxpayers being bilked by Halliburton. But a quick scan over the figures above shows that the amount of outrage directed at this particular company seems vastly out of proportion, considering the truly staggering sums which are being wasted, or being transferred from the government to other private companies with insufficient accountability.

For example, Halliburton's oft-mentioned fraud ($106 million/year over two years) is nothing to sneeze at, but it's 0.16% of the amount of known fraud consumed by Medicare in one year. And it's 0.014% of the amount of money we're currently pouring into the TARP, which is also looking like a financial disaster. Yet we don't hear 600 times as rage directed at Medicare as at Halliburton, and we're certainly not hearing more than 7,000 times as much rage directed at the TARP bailout.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect this discrepancy has a lot to do with who the money can be followed back to. Dick Cheney gives all future Halliburton profits to charity, and then Halliburtion is caught overcharging? Horrifying! Impeach! Off with their heads! Countrywide Financial gives Chris Dodd $165,000 in campaign contributions, and a sweetheart mortgage deal, and in return is handed a $51 billion bailout -- over 480 times as much? Nothing to see here! No, no problem at all. Resign? What, are you kidding??? Move along, everyone, move on!

(* There are popular larger estimates, but they include interest and other projected long-term costs. None of the other figures quoted above include such charges (for instance, the $700 billion TARP is entirely borrowed, and yet includes no interest costs -- same with Medicare & Medicaid) so I'm simply trying to compare apples to apples.)