8 hours and 20 minutes

"This email is circulating on the internet.  Curious to hear your reaction."  ~ Mr. D

 How many zeros in a billion?

The next time you hear a politician use theword '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 it's 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) is presently 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

(pause, to catch my breath)

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 Charge Tax     Utility Tax     Vehicle License Registration T ax     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!'

Comments

[Paul]

With credit to Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/trivia/billions.asp) it's amusing to see people use the phrase "with some simple division" and then get the division wrong.

Not arguing with the piece (in fact as Snopes point out the figure on spending is much too kind to the government!), but one item did catch my eye, which is the Medicare tax. It's true that there was no such thing in 1909, but the tax would hardly have been a burden if it had existed, as average life expectancy at the time was barely 50 years. Ah, the good old days.

[Mr. D]

Thanks for the link to Snopes, Paul.

Have you noticed that now trillions has become part of the national vocabulary?

The current projected health care bailout bill is closing in on 2 trillion.

That would be, uh, let's see, one thousand times billion.

Someone want to do the math? ;)

[Paul]

There's a quote somewhere about how such numbers used to be called astronomical, but now they should really be called economical :)

[tgirsch]

Eh. I'm ambivalent about such comparisons. Raise your hand if you want to go back to living the way people did in 1909. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? And I seriously doubt that the "middle class" of 1909 was much to brag about.

The truth is that the overwhelming majority of government spending goes to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense, and I'm not eager to get rid of any of those (though there's doubtless fat that could be trimmed from Medicare and especially defense).