The proposed budget deal is appropriating 1.1 Trillion dollars to fund our government until the end of September 2015. I don't know about you, but, I find it hard to wrap my mind around a trillion of anything.
According to this site: How Much is a Trillion Dollars? http://ihtd.org/festivalguide/resources/how-much-is-a-trillion-dollars/ a stack of $1000.00 bills would be 4 inches high for a million dollars. For a billion dollars, the stack would be 364 feet high. And get ready for this: for a trillion dollars, the stack would be 63 MILES high give or take a foot or two. Height is one way to conceive of the difference between a million, billion, and trillion.
Another way is in terms of actual money. With approximately 3 Billion people in the world, a million is 1 cent per household. A billion is $3.28 per person or about $9.00 per household. And finally, a trillion is $3,280 per person or $9,000 per household.
Does that help you to see the kind of money our elected representatives are playing with? Don't forget it's our money or money borrowed on our behalf.
I would hope that pondering these numbers would inspire you to become more involved in politics and to keep a better eye on what the politicians are doing on your behalf. Here's one source of information for how monies already appropriated are working: http://www.gao.gov/
Another watchdog group that's been around since 1981 is http://www.pogo.org/about/ Lewis Black explains the project here: Project On Government Oversight Exposes Corruption, Explores Solutions.: http://youtu.be/Ln8QexETcVw via @YouTube
If we don't Hold Their Feet to the Fire, who will?
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