The message that $30 billion has been wasted in military contracting in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars hasn’t gotten through to the people who need to hear it, apparently. So the Commission on Wartime Contracting is putting the figure in more urgent terms.

A nonpartisan panel reporting to Congress says the United States is wasting $12 million a day among contracts issued in support of American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.[…]

Commissioner Katherine Schinasi told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that the numbers don’t seem to have an impact on people concerned about spending.

To make it easier to grasp the magnitude of the problem, Schinasi said, ‘we’ve broken it down to $12 million a day.’

‘We are wasting $12 million a day,’ she said, ‘maybe that will make a difference.’

The ‘people concerned about spending’ would be pretty much everybody in Washington, D.C. who have spent months yammering about deficits, but not talking about the ongoing costs of these wars. Maybe when it’s put in such stark terms-$12 million a day, just on military contracts, wasted-it’ll get the attention it deserves.