Trillionology...

President Bush just signed the paper work raising the limit of the national debt too $9.8 trillion. Now, I don't know about you, but my eyes kind of glaze over when someone starts talking about a trillion of anything. I read a comparison from Brian Bex about the difference between a million, a billion and a trillion a while back that I thought was interesting.

If you have trouble relating to a trillion dollars, consider this: A million seconds amounts to about eleven days. A billion seconds amounts to about 32 years. A trillion seconds amounts to about 317 centuries.

I think it would be beneficial if the government would explain just how much they are spending in terms that a guy like me could understand. Like how many centuries is it going to take to pay off $9.8 trillion. And what is each persons share of the $406 billion in interest we paid on the debt last year. (I'm figuring a family of four's share would be over $5000.00.) Or how about telling us the $200 billion in aid sent in after Katrina amounts to about $400,000.00 for each displaced family.

When you do the math, its not hard to understand why Libertarians aren't too happy about the government having so much control over spending our money. Its really not very good at it.