Fun with numbers..

The national debt is fast approaching $12 trillion dollars. Of course, that is what's already on the books. Estimates for the governments unfunded liabilities are upwards of 60 or 70 trillion. I think most people have an understanding of a million, and even a billion, but a trillion tends to get out of our grasp. I heard an explanation once that in terms of time, one million seconds equals 11 days, while a billion seconds equals 32 years, but a trillion seconds equals 317 centuries.

Like I said, a trillion can be hard to get your head around.

It just figures that interest on a trillion dollars would be a lot of money, too. So would the interest on 12 trillion dollars. If you want to understand how much, consider that 40% of all of the individual income tax paid in the United States goes just to pay the interest on that debt. Another way to look at it, all of the individual income taxes paid by all of the people west of the Mississippi River go just to pay the interest on the national debt.

One of the reasons we have so much debt is because the government spends more than it takes in. Every year. This year the deficit will be 1.4 trillion dollars.

There is that "trillion" word again.

I read a good explanation the other day about how much 1.4 trillion dollars really is. It's enough that the 45 million school children in this country, in grades 1 through 12, could all attend the private Sidwell Friends School, where President Obama's daughters attend, at a cost of $30,000.00 per year.

The government says it will hold the deficit to 1.4 trillion dollars in 2010, also.

But I'm not counting on it.

Thanks for the advice, but No Thanks...

The world has always been full of bad advice.

In March 1990, Republican Clayton Williams, Jr. was running against Democrat Ann Richards for Texas governor. Williams compared the Texas weather to rape, saying "if it’s inevitable, then relax and enjoy it." I'm happy to report that Williams lost that election.

For some unknown reason, Bobby Knight felt compelled to offer the same advice while talking to a reporter. Considering Bobby's aversion to relaxing and enjoying anything, I'm not sure he believed his own advice, and in view of the aftermath I'm pretty sure he wishes he had never given it. Especially to a reporter.

The other day, a reader responded to a post I made over at the Palladium-Item saying,"You CAN'T get the government out of the way, just as in the military you serve under the leadership you have - you don't argue, you simply do."

I figure that comes under the heading of "bad advice" also.

There is quite a push in Congress right now to tack a few trillion dollars onto our national debt. Along with that debt comes the promise of more and higher taxes to pay it back. A lot of people are advising that we should put politics aside and work together to assure that this happens.

I'm not sure why they believe that a government that regulated and spent us into this mess will be able to regulate and spend us out of it, but that seems to be their advice. But it's advice I'm not taking. And even if it seems inevitable, I'm not going to relax. And I'm certainly not going to enjoy it.

Thomas Jefferson had some good advice on what government should be:

"A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

That's advice worth taking.