A BILLION DOLLARS

When ever the popular press talks about government spending, they always say "$X billion spent on this" and "$Y billions spent on that". But what is a billion dollars? Who has ever seen a billion? Everyone knows the math: 1,000 times 1 million. But how much is that?

Well, let's say your boss pays you $1 per second for a whole day. That is $1 x 60 seconds x 60 minutes x 24 hours, which equals $86,400. That's a lot of money.

In a week's time (x 7), you would have $604,800. THAT is a lot of money.

However even getting $600,000 per week, it would take you over 31 YEARS to get $1 billion!!! That IS a lot of money.

When the federal government talks about spending a billion here and $100 billion there, the only way I know to make ANY sense of it is to break it down into how much of MY money they are spending. It's simple. Every $1 billion spent equals $6.54 of my money if I'm the Average Taxpayer - the total budget divided by the people in the labor force. Serious people take this spending seriously, because the government's spending money doesn't come from the tooth fairy - it comes from you and me... or debt piles up for our children. Either our elected leaders spend wisely, or let's replace them with men and women who will.

It's your money. You decide.