| Surplus? US Debt Pushes $6 Trillion | |
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The U.S. national debt? A little more than $5,674,178,209,886.86. Doesn't sound so bad -- until you say the number in words. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) likes to do just that occasionally on the floor of the Senate. On Oct. 2, 2000, Sen. Helms told the Senate:
"... at the close of business Friday, September 29, 2000, the Federal debt stood at $5,674,178,209,886.86,
five trillion, six hundred seventy-four billion, one hundred seventy-eight million, two hundred nine thousand, eight hundred eighty-six dollars and eighty-six cents. [Congressional Record, Page S9601 - October 2, 2000]
Sounds worse when you actually say it, doesn't it? [Want to know the national debt right now?]
But, how many is a "trillion"
dollars?
If we all
decided to all pitch in and pay off just the first $5 trillion of the federal
debt at the rate of $1.00 (one dollar) per second, it would take us around 160,000
years. One hundred sixty thousand years.
A tightly-packed stack of crisp new $1000 bills, totaling $5 billion, would be 315 miles tall. The Space Shuttle, which orbits at about 240 miles above the earth, would have to go around our "debt stack."
Want to know the national debt is right now? Come on, don't be a chicken. After all, Vice President Gore and Gov. Bush are promising to give us tax cuts from the surplus.
The what? Where does anybody facing a debt of $5.6 trillion and change come off dividing up a surplus?
To
figure that one out, you need to know the difference between the national debt
and the federal deficit. Next page >
Debt,
Deficit and This Surplus Thing > Page 1, 2
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