Understanding Billions of Dollars

Jed Clampett had a problem. Representatives from the OK Oil Company were willing to pump that pesky oil out of his swamp — even pay him for it. But for some reason, they didn’t want to give him “regular” dollars. No, they wanted to pay him with some kind of new-fangled “million” dollars.

And with that, Jed learned the value of putting six zeroes after a number.

Not content with that, Washington politicians insist on putting nine zeroes after every number. Sometimes twelve. They treat “billion” (and increasingly, “trillion”) as if they were mere adjectives. The words “thousand” and “million” are tossed aside like the quarters and nickels you find under your couch cushions.

In an era where the price of a cruise missile is treated as a rounding error, it’s easy to lose perspective of exactly how much money we’re talking about. Maybe it’s easier to understand if we bring it down to a personal level.

There are about 135 million 1040 tax forms filed each year. So for argument’s sake, let’s say there are about 135 million taxpayers in the country. To get an idea of the impact of federal spending on the “average” taxpayer, simply divide the number in question by 135 million.

Here’s how it works:

One billion dollars represents about $7.41 per tax payer. That doesn’t sound like much. For example, if the government needs to build a billion-dollar bridge across a river, that bridge would cost each tax payer a little over seven dollars.

The problem is most federal projects aren’t measured in billions; they are measured in hundreds of billions. A seven hundred billion dollar bailout costs each taxpayer over five thousand dollars.

A trillion dollars costs each taxpayer almost $7500.

If given the choice, would a taxpayer be willing to spend five thousand dollars to “bail out” the economy by giving it to banks, insurance companies, and mortgage companies that have already shown poor business judgment?

Or would it be more effective to give each taxpayer five thousand dollars to invest in the economy by spending it the way that he wants to?

Or would it be better to cut out the middle-man altogether and simply reduce taxes by five thousand dollars and let each taxpayer keep the money that he earned in the first place?

Washington isn’t just broken; it’s broke, too. It’s my money that they’re spending — and yours, too. There’s no hope for sanity until we replace the ones in charge of the checkbook with people that actually understand that concept.

FactCheck Has Company

You can measure the credibility of an organization by noting how much it’s interested in achieving its stated goal, rather than in taking credit for it.

For example, if an organization is dedicated to curing cancer, would it not rejoice if cancer was cured by a competing organization? Or would it try to discredit the cure, or inhibit the progress of finding the cure?

Moving from cancer to politics — not much of a stretch, actually — our collective hats go off to FactCheck.org, the arm of the Annenberg Foundation dedicated to keeping politicians honest, and to informing the public when they are less than so.

FactCheck.org rose to fame in the 2004 Vice Presidential Debate when Dick Cheney accidentally referred to them as FactCheck.com. Although a certain George Soros web site suddenly got a lot of hits, the confusion was cleared up the next day and I suddenly became a fan of this wonderful site.

It is the purpose of FactCheck.org (emphasis on the ORG!) to check on all the things that politicians say in public — both mundane and outlandish. When the outlandish is discovered, FactCheck.org (emphasis on the ORG!) rushes into action, publicly chastising the politician and setting the record straight. They are entirely non-partisan; Democrats and Republicans get equal treatment. They have no bones to pick; nothing to sell except the truth. It is truly American politics at its finest.

So I was pleasantly surprised when an email landed in my inbox from FactCheck.org (emphasis on — oh, I’m tired of that joke already) with the subject line, “We Have Company!”

That’s right FactCheck (dot whatever) is actually announcing the arrival of their competition. And, in true character with the organization, they couldn’t be happier.

The St. Petersburg Times has started a new web site, PolitiFact.com. (Yep, they’re a for-profit newspaper; dot-com is okay.)

Whereas FactCheck.org deals mostly in the hard truth (or fiction) of an item, PolitiFact.com attempts a little bit of qualitative judgment by assigning each item a “Truth-o-meter” rating. This unique 6-level scale rates each fact from “True” through “Half-True” all the way to “Pants on Fire!”

PolitiFact.org has been known to get slightly whimsical at times. Joe Biden’s comment that “The president is brain-dead” got an unmerciful “Pants on Fire!” rating, noting that brain death is defined as “irreversible unconsciousness with complete loss of brain function”. Gee, lighten up; I think a little poetic license in political rhetoric is acceptable.

But the point is that FactCheck.org welcomed the competition with open arms. Gotta give them credit for that. In a time where everybody is clambering for their share of the pie, FactCheck.org says the water’s fine, come on it.

FactCheck.org has always gotten my vote for their unbiased reporting and diligent quest for the truth. Once again, they have shown their true colors. They are more interested in getting the facts out there than they are in taking credit for it. And I admire them for that.