Eighty-seven billion dollars. It was recently reported that this amount could keep Washington state running for nine years.

If it weren’t spent on that, it could buy a complete public transportation system – including rail, buses and improvements to the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge – for the entire Seattle metropolitan area, and several other urban areas as well. Including Los Angeles.

This might create a job or two.

And for those who don’t have jobs, it could go toward badly needed worker retraining. Or to health care – but heaven forbid the government get involved, the present insurance-industry dominated system is working so well. Or the money could go toward development of alternative energy sources of the type that could help keep us from getting into similar messes in the future.

Or it could go toward finding Osama bin Laden.

Or finance meaningful tax cuts.

Or go toward reducing the deficit.

Or some combination of all of the above.

The $87 billion that President Bush is requesting from Congress to go toward securing and rebuilding Iraq equals nearly one-fifth of the now-record $500 billion federal deficit. Figuring in the $4 billion per month that’s already been spent on the Iraq war since March, the total is $111 billion and rising.

If this money were, as a hypothetical example, apportioned equally among the 50 states, it would come out to $2.2 billion per state – roughly equal to the deficit the Washington State Legislature was faced with for this year and next.

Meanwhile, the Edmonds School District is 10 years behind in computer technology and has a crumbling high school that needs to be rebuilt. And the city of Edmonds in November will ask voters for $1.7 million to keep its police and fire departments fully capable of providing real safety and security – not hyped, exaggerated, perceived, or theoretical – to its residents. This is safety and security provided by the same kind of public servants who gave their lives on September 11, 2001.

The problem is, we’re stuck. We’ve made a mess in someone else’s house and now we have to clean it up. And we’re asking for help from the people who wisely told us not to make the mess in the first place. Sounds more like the actions of a 7-year-old than a mature, responsible adult.

Ironically, our children and their children will be paying for this mess with their hard-earned tax dollars when they grow up to become adults. They will have to clean up the messes that we’ve left lying around our own house. If they don’t, they’ll pay in other ways.

We supposedly “won” the war in Iraq. But we’re starting to look an awful lot like losers.

Bill Sheets is editor of the Edmonds edition of the Enterprise.