The High Cost of Quitting

How much does it cost to quit smoking? Not in emotional/physiological terms, but in terms of actual money? We're thinking, "Very little." In fact, one could reasonably assume that quitting smoking--or drinking or shooting heroin or sniffing glue or gambling or any number of other socially undesirable activities--would actually save money. You'd have at your disposal all that extra cash that you've been doling out on your bad habits. Indeed, this could be one of the strongest arguments for giving up said habits.

This occurred to us as we pondered the news that congressional Democrats were balking at authorizing an expenditure of some $80 million to close the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay. Now in fairness, it's not so much the "expenditure" part to which they object, as it is the "to close the prison camps" part: They're worried about what happens next to the potentially dangerous inmate population. NIMBY-ism rears its ugly head--arguably with good reason, as a Pentagon report cited in today's Times concludes that about 1 in 7 freed detainees return eventually to terrorist activity. Still, you can assume a less than 15% chance that the released detainee next door is a terrorist and a better than 85% chance that he is a hilarious neighbor in the mold of Lenny, Squiggy, or Jack (from "Will and Grace").

But getting back to the $80 million: We think this seems an unnecessarily large amount of money. How much does it cost to just say, "OK, folks. Prison's closed!" Presumably, you need some money to transport the soldiers who've been guarding the place back to the U.S. But other than that, what else do you need money for? The last person out could just leave the gate open, and the detainees can either hang out or make their way to Havana, where they will still get free (and apparently high quality) health care.

Yes, this sounds callous, and we are being somewhat facetious. At the same time, though, if you asked the detainees which they would prefer--to be set free in something like the manner described above or to continue sitting around in crowded cells for an indefinite and potentially endless period--which do you think they would choose? We're not sure the answer is obvious.

So, in this spirit, we offer to President Obama our solipsistic services as prison-camp-closing experts. And as you can see, we will not be needing 80 million hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

We'll do it for $75,000,000.