Now that the American public is supposed to understand the “big picture” and appreciate how much our legislators are doing for us with these billion dollar savings, I need to have a calculator that does billions and trillions. In his 2012 budget, President Obama projected a $1,500,000,000,000 trillion dollar deficit which I think means that this is money that the Government does not have but desperately needs for it’s Federal programs that will make our life easier in the years ahead. Mr. Obama is also projecting a savings over the next 10 years of over $4,000,000,000,000 trillion dollars. I am now really excited!
Now I also understand the good news that our legislators are telling us. They have reduced Federal spending in the 2011 budget by $ 38,000,000,000 so things should be looking up – right? I am not so sure. Now, when I try and calculate how this $38,000,000,000 savings in spending compares to the projected Federal deficit that was projected for 2012 by Mr. Obama, my calculator freezes up. I try and divide $38,000,000,000 by $1,500,000,000,000 and it does this memory thing that says it does not have the computing power necessary to determine this level of savings? How can this be? The folks in Washington must have a calculator that does this high level type of savings?
I got a big sheet of paper out. One that would accommodate all the zeros necessary and guess what. My division may be flawed but I checked and rechecked the results and the savings of $38 billion that our Congress is flaunting is only about 2.5% of the projected deficit for the budget year of 2012 that our President has forecasted? All of a sudden my enthusiasm is not so great. Now, if I compare the projected savings against the National Debt of $14,240,000,000,000 my pencil starts to quiver! It looks as if the savings against the National Debt is more like .02% or two tenths of a percent. In other words, my grandchildren may never see the National Debt ever paid off. With the interest mounting on the Debt, I suspect that none of my grandchildren, who were set to inherit this nasty mess, will ever be around to see the National Debt clock ever stop.
Something tells me that we have a serious problem. Until we balance our annual fiscal budgets in Washington on an annual basis, our efforts to pay down the National Debt are doomed to fail. I am, however, looking into a calculator that will handle division and multiplication in the billions and trillions. I want to be part of the new team that is going to move us ahead to an era of fiscal responsibility. Sounds good doesn’t it?
