What $165 million could have bought instead

Those AIG bonuses amounted to $165 million. I've heard a lot of talk about how it was just a drop in the bucket out of the billions AIG got in bailout money -- why should we be so concerned about it?

While it's true that it's several orders of magnitude smaller than the price tags we've been looking at for bailing out failed institutions, $165 million is still a lot of money. What could we have bought for America instead?

• National Endowment for the Arts budget for FY 2008 : $144.7 million
• Allow the New York City Department of Education to develop 200 schools: $150 million
• Improving Health care in rural areas under the president's new plan: $73 million
• Mars Polar Lander: $120 million
• Chesapeake Bay Watershed Conservation Program: $165 million
• TriPoint Medical Center, a state-of-the-art health care facility in Ohio: $150 million

• Absolute total idiocy: Priceless.