[Buckeye McFrog]

I heard a stat today that for what has already been spent they could pay for 5000 years worth of man hours at 200 bucks a pop.

[pepsionice]

Only a suggestion here...but since this is fresh new money for something we already paid for...I’d suggest to invent a new tax on software development companies and just pass the buck on down the line. Make it a nineteen percent tax for one year...just like that fancy medical appliance tax they invented...and shower the IT industry with the same pains as everyone else.

[TurboZamboni]

Proving my old axiom, “No gubmint program is EVER a failure it's just ‘underfunded’.”

[Black Agnes]

Because nearly three quarters of a BILLION dollars wasn’t enough!

[CA Conservative]

I heard a stat today that for what has already been spent they could pay for 5000 years worth of man hours at 200 bucks a pop.

That is off by an order of magnitude. Five thousand man-years (approximately 10 million man/hours) at $200/hour would be over $2 billion. Five hundred man-years at the same cost would be $200 million, which is on the low end of the cost estimates I have heard. So figure between 500-1500 man years, depending upon which cost estimate you believe.