OPINION:
People have short memories, and their minds fog over when big amounts of money are discussed. Millions, billions, trillions - they don’t realize what’s being talked about when the numbers get that high.
To put these numbers into perspective, each billion dollars that Congress spends comes out to approximately $3.25 per man, woman and child in the United States, given current census figures. That may not sound like much till you realize that Congress spends many billions of dollars in each of its yearly budgets. It takes $1,000 billion to make $1 trillion.
President George W. Bush raised the $4 trillion debt by 50 percent in six years with two wars and was rightly criticized. The 110th Congress raised that amount by 50 percent ($3 trillion) in two years. The “most productive” 111th Congress managed to raise that by nearly an additional $5 trillion in the time since President Obama took office.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada took our debt from $6 trillion to $14 trillion in four years. They multiplied by a factor of 2.5 a debt load that it took 43 presidents and 230 years to amass. The icing on the cake? Congress is currently falling a trillion dollars deeper in debt every year.
DOUG EDELMAN
St. Peters, Mo.
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