On Feb. 11, 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury reported that the U.S. national debt breached $22 trillion. The current interest on the debt is $1 billion per day. By the year 2025, interest on the debt will be $688 billion and will equal 12.5% of the budget. During the $4.5 trillion fiscal year budget, we spend $513,698,630 per hour. The amount of debt for every citizen chimes in at $67,000, and $179,805 per active taxpayer.
In comparison, if you had no expenses and earned a measly $50,000 per year, saving only $1 trillion would take you 20 million years. If you spent one dollar every second, you would have spent a little more than $1 million in twelve days, $1 billion in 32 years, and $1 trillion in 31,709 years.
“Let’s imagine that you have a fantastic job that pays you one dollar for every second you work. There are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. If you are paid for a 40-hour workweek, for 52 weeks, you would be paid $7,488,000 in a year. Moreover, if you were getting your $1/sec rate for every second of the entire year, you would take in $31,536,000. At that rate, to earn a trillion dollars, you would have to work more than 31,709 years! Moreover, even if they magnanimously paid you $1,000/sec, it would still take you more than 31 years to earn that first $1 trillion. They say the war in Iraq is costing taxpayers about $2 billion dollars per week. There are 3,600 seconds in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 7 days in a week for a total of 604,800 seconds per week. At $2 billion per week, the Iraq war costs us over $3,000 every second! Can I borrow a couple of bucks for the rent this month?” – TheZoo, Oct. 2007
Fed’s Powell Says U.S. Is on an Unsustainable Fiscal Path – Bloomberg, Nov. 2018
The Federal Deficit Is Headed For $1 Trillion. Should We Care? – Tax Policy Center, Jan. 29
Why the national debt skyrocketing to $22T matters – DiMartinoBooth on FoxBusiness, Feb. 13
Financial Report of the United States Government… “Projections in the Financial Report indicate that the Government’s debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to remain relatively stable over the next decade, and then continuously rise over the remaining projection period and beyond if current policy is kept in place. This trend implies that current policy is not sustainable.” – Department of the Treasury, Feb. 2018
The Total Fiscal Gap in the U.S. is $241 Trillion… “The current path is unsustainable… Filling the gap through higher taxes alone is politically unrealistic… Filling the gap through a wealth tax is mathematically impossible… Closing the gap through spending cuts alone likewise appears politically dubious.” – Forbes, Jan. 31
The U.S. national debt in 1791 was $75,000,000. Today, the U.S. national debt increases $513,698,630 every hour. On Jan. 8, 1835, Andrew Jackson successfully eliminated the U.S. national debt accumulated during the Revolutionary War, and it was the only time in U.S. history that our country was debt-free. President Jackson considered the national debt to be a “national curse.”
Here are a few final musings about the scale of a trillion:
- One trillion is a number equal to 1,000 billion, or 1,000,000,000,000
- One trillion miles would take 62 days traveling at the speed of light
- One trillion dollar bills would connect New York to Los Angeles 40,000 times
- One trillion dollar bills would create a stack 67,866 miles high
- One trillion dollar bills would stretch around the Earth 4,000 times
- One trillion dollar bills would lay a path to the Moon 400 times
- One trillion dollar bills would lay a path for a round trip to Mars
- One trillion inches would only take you a sixth of the way to the Sun
- One trillion seconds ago, neanderthals roamed the Earth
- One trillion minutes ago, Smilodons ruled the Earth
- One trillion hours ago, dinosaurs roamed the Earth in the Cretaceous period
- One trillion days ago, the most advanced form of life on Earth was algea
- One trillion years is about 72x the age of the universe
When the U.S. national debt was only $20 trillion:
U.S. Debt Visualized in $100 Bills…“Each floor of each pillar is worth $10 Billion. There’s an American Football field hiding inside Statue of Liberty’s prison cell made of debt.” – Democracy Info
When I needed time alone to consider life and its challenges, my favorite escape was a ride on my Harley with straight pipes. I want my sportster back.
Canned Heat – On The Road Again
https://youtu.be/2jHyRgG5-Y8
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