woody54895 Loc: NW Wisconsin

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the
Word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the 'politicians' spending
YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
But one advertising agency did a good job of
Putting that figure into some perspective in
One of its releases.

A.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were
living in the Stone Age.

D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E.
A billion dollars ago was only
8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government
is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain...
let's take a look at New Orleans ...
It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator,
Mary Landrieu (D)
was asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS
To rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number...
What does it mean?

A.
Well .. If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman and child)
You each get $516,528

B.
Or... If you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

C.
Or... If you are a family of four...
Your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington , D.C

HELLO!
Are all your calculators broken??

Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax (Fed)
Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage ChargeTax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
(And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes)

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
And our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world...
And Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?
Can you spell
'politicians'!

And I still have to
Press '1'
For English.

I hope this goes around the
USA!
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY?

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

A lot of the money requested for New Orleans is to rebuild the infrastructure of the city. If you had been there since the flood as I have, you would have seen the sinkholes where the roads were. They need to rebuild the entire sewer system and water supply the need to rebuild the schools and roads. It is no different from the devastation that many natural disasters leave behind except this disaster is a direct result of the government failure to adequately protect the city with the levee system that it built and maintains.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

It would be much cheaper to let those who insist on living under sea level bail themselves out or let it go back to the swamp it once was, and still is in many respects.

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

Glad to see you admit that the government can fail.

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

Absolutely not true. In 1912 the national debt was $2,868,373,874.16. This is from the website Timely Information Processing Services. Certainly smaller than today, but if you convert that to 2012 dollars, it's obviously much, much bigger. If you assume an average of 3% inflation every year for a hundred years, that would be $55,068,565,972,196, which would dwarf anything we have today.

http://130.94.230.21/debt_history.htm

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Another interesting fact about our debt is that if you were to take our debt and using $100 bills lay them flat as you would when putting a dollar bill down on the table, our nations debt stacked in $100 bills would reach almost 11,000 miles into space.

Not to worry though, I'm not going to be the one who will have to pay that debt back... It was my generation who got to enjoy the benefit of racking all that debt up... we will just leave it to those who follow to worry about who's going to have to pay it back.

Danilo Loc: Las Vegas

While having compassion toward those in New Orleans and the hardship they have gone through, and still are going through, I feel it's important to remember: We ARE running out of money!
Maybe they could take some of the $$ the California boneheads are going to spend on their high-speed rail project and send it to New Orleans.
I used to run into people like this while I was bartending: As long as there was $1 in their pocket, by God, it was going into that video poker machine sitting on the bar. Then they'd have to go beg for dinner! Is this where we want our country to go?
California (I know, it's none of my business) is already lying face down in the financial mud pie of bankruptcy, and STILL spending like the money is growing on trees! And it IS my business, because when CA goes belly-up, they're going to take all of us with them.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

I think you need to redo your math.

Closer to $55,126,221,870.98 - That's 55 billion versus your 55 trillion but what's 55 trillion difference in todays phony dollars?

BW326 Loc: Boynton Beach, Florida

And the Wizard says ...

LARRYR. Loc: Saint Martinville, La.

Were does the money go,next to where I live in Saint Martinville,La is the city of New Iberia where I work.
Now this city has 3 bridges that are under construction,
one bridge has been down for over a year because of lack
of funds, so they took down down anothere bridge a few
months later which is still down as of this day, reason
being lack of funds, so instead of using the money to restore these two bridges they took another bridge out
of useage which is now being worked on.Now from what I
their planing to shut down another bridge in the near
future, which means ever tax payer will have to travel
at lease an extra 4 to 5 miles extra just to by pass
the blockades. Again where does the money go, they bid
on a job for $1,000,000 and 3 years later the price tag
goes up to $3,500,000 and there no money and we still
have broken bridges.GOVERMENT out to help the people
yea right, give me a break

Dr Grump Loc: Southern New England

And there are over 7 billion people in the world, 4.5% of whom live in this country.

Where does the money go? From your pocket into the bank accounts of the top 10% who can't possibly spend a small fraction of it and so they invest it in ways that siphon more out of your pocket into their bank accounts.

LARRYR. Loc: Saint Martinville, La.

Let's see 7 billion people, we spend $5 trillion, seems like we should be able to make every one a millionair and still have plenty of money left over, I know it doesn't work that way.

TrainNut Loc: Ridin' the rails

Thanks for the Perspective.

HEART Loc: God's Country - COLORADO

Larry, that's the best use of math ever used on the forum! Go to the head of the class!

amyinsparta Loc: White county, TN

It's not the money; it's the waste of the money. Who wastes it? Why, those very people we elect to office! If you don't want waste, hire people who do what you hired them to do. After all, you and me and every citizen are the bosses. So stop complaining about politicians and bureaucrats and keep voting them out of office until you get one that works for all instead of a privileged few. If that doesn't work, MARCH! Nothing happens but by our decisions.