ONE BILLION DOLLARS

September 19, 2008

If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention – bumper sticker

According to OpenSecrets.org “For the first time ever in U.S. history, the candidates for President have raised more than $1 billion.” ONE BILLION DOLLARS! $1,000,000,000.00. $1000 Million Dollars. That sure sounds like a lot of money…how much is it you might ask? Well, I went to About.com to get some help with putting that number into some perspective:

• A million dollars ago was five (5) seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury.
  A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury.

• If we wanted to pay down a billion dollars of the US debt, (which as of this writing is $9,666,440,318,030.02 - that’s 9 trillion, 6 hundred 66 billion, 4hundred 40 million, 3 hundred 18 thousand 30 dollars and two cents) paying one dollar a second, it would take 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds. To pay off a trillion dollars of debt, at a dollar a second, would take about 32,000 years.
• A tightly-packed stack of new $1,000 bills totaling $1 billion would be 63 miles high. In comparison, jet planes fly at 30,000 - 40,000 feet (5.7 - 7.7 miles high).
• About a billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was in full swing. (One billion minutes is about 1,900 years.)
• About a billion hours ago, we were living in the Stone Age. (One billion hours is about 114,000 years.)
• About a billion months ago, dinosaurs walked the earth. (One billion months is about 82 million years.)
• A billion inches is 15,783 miles, more than halfway around the earth (circumference). The earth is about 8,000 miles wide (diameter), and the sun is about 800,000 miles wide, not quite a million.

Now that that’s clear-er…the candidates for President have raised $1 Billion dollars which they "NEED" to use to finance their Presidential campaigns. $1 Billion dollars to get elected for President. $1 Billion dollars spent on campaign teams, field offices and data collectors, survey results, polls and focus groups, TV, radio and newspaper ads, Billboards, posters and mailings. $1 Billion dollars spent on NOTHING really important at a time when people are losing their homes and their jobs due to the economic crisis, communities are being destroyed because of weather catastrophes, individuals cannot afford gas for their cars or food on their tables and parents cannot get loans to send their children to college. That is just in the United States. What about the troubles in the rest of the world, where children are starving, unclothed and uneducated…WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!

Obama says, “We are a better country than this.” Well I damn well think we should be and I damn well think our Presidential candidates should be our role models for being better than this. $1 Billion dollars to put a person into the White House. Ridiculous! There has got to be a better and far less expensive way to elect someone for President.

Whew! I just had to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading. Moving on...

Kathy B.