If you spent $1 million every day since Jesus it wouldn't equal the stimulus!

@Taskr36 (13963)
United States
February 5, 2009 12:36pm CST
In a CBS Face the Nation interview on Feb. 1, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky, sought to put the proposed economic stimulus bill into some sobering perspective. "You know, this is huge money," McConnell said. "This is — someone said the other day that, if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.” The bill isn't that expensive yet -- the House version is estimated at $819 billion -- but the Senate is expected to add new programs and additional tax cuts that could increase the cost significantly. Both chambers are expected to keep the total pricetag under $1 trillion. We'll save you from counting zeros on your online calculator and give you our quick and dirty assessment of whether his analogy is right. First, a starting point. Biblical scholars may quibble about the actual birth date of Jesus Christ, but we're going to go with the fairly commonly accepted theory that it was around 4 B.C. That's right, it would mean Christ was actually born "Before Christ." Add that to Anno Domini time, and you come to 2012 years since the birth of Christ. So here goes our math: 2,012 times 365 (yes, we are aware there are leap years..don't be like that) times $1,000,000. A: $734 billion (give or take a few hundred million). The stimulus package is actually short of $1 trillion too, $819 billion. But that's still more than a million bucks a day since the day Jesus was born. We find McConnell's staggering stat to be True. http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/feb/03/mitch-mcconnell/stimulus-plan-more-million-day-jesus-christ-was-bo/
4 people like this
6 responses
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
5 Feb 09
Stop that, you're making me dizzy...lol! I have a tough enough time comprehending more than TWO zeros these days when it pertains to money so a trillion is beyond overwhelming. Annie
1 person likes this
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
5 Feb 09
That's why I sometimes find it necessary to include all the zeros rather than writ $920 billion. We are desensitized the words million, billion, and even trillion. When you see someone say this bill is currently at 920,000,000,000.00 and that it will eventually hit 1,000,000,000,000.00 I think it works better to get the point across that this is a $hitload of money being thrown away. It's even more ridiculous when you think about the fact that this stimulus broken down would be $3,000.00 for every man, woman, child, and illegal alien currently residing in this country.
2 people like this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
5 Feb 09
OK, you've convinced me...just give me the $3000...and my husband, and my daughter and son-in-law, and both my grandkids, and so on and so on! Annie
@jonesy123 (3948)
• United States
5 Feb 09
It's interesting how they shy away from putting it really into perspective. If you calculate the per capita spending of all bailout. Well, by now it's more than a lot of us earn in a year. You can buy a nice car from that. Put a down payment on a house. You get the drift. They are handing out money like there is no tomorrow while criticizing those who live(d) beyond their means and bought houses that they could not afford to pay the mortgage on... Didn't excessive spending and borrowing get us into this mess in the first place?
1 person likes this
@peavey (16936)
• United States
5 Feb 09
That's definitely putting it into perspective. It boggles my mind... what does our government think it's doing??
1 person likes this
@ladyluna (7004)
• United States
5 Feb 09
Hello Taskr, We all know that it is imprudent to reward our kidlettes for naughty behavior, right? So, I suggest that every American call their legislators and tell them that they are not authorized to enact any stimulus spending package until they pass a balanced annual budget first. If they can handle that, then we'll think about letting them stay up 'till 11:00pm to watch Arnold Ziffel on "Nick at Night". Let them get their spoiled pork fix from Lisa and Oliver. As for the Jesus analogy: That is truly incredible!
@laglen (19759)
• United States
5 Feb 09
Thats just nuts! Wouldn't it make more sense to split it up amongst tax payers?
• United States
5 Feb 09
All I can say is WOW, that is definately a statistic to give you pause. I wonder at what rate our government will pay this debt to the American public back? Maybe they'll just take out a second morgage with China. All snide comments aside, this should be shocking to us as tax paying citizens, we should be raising caine over it, protesting in the streets...there should be an outraged outcry, but instead we are just meekly sitting by allowing this to happen. We are letting them pass this monstrosity through both houses with barely a peep (why? so Big Brother can help us the way Big Brother thinks is best for us?). And here's a question, who is holding the greatest of the big spenders accountable for their willie nillie spending of an obsene amount of money.......who do they answer to......THEMSELVES!!!
1 person likes this