Let me put a Trillion Dollar Bailout in a somewhat different perspective

[ThomWV]

Is it better to over-spend or under-spend when you're doing a bailout? Well, if you don't spend enough its no bailout at all, is it?

OK, just what does it mean that we are about to borrow roughly a trillion more dollars, how could such an astronomical amount of money ever be repaid? Well, its works out to be about 4.8 months wort of tax collections for our great nation. So in fact if every federal tax currently in existance (both personal and corporate, rich and poor) was doubled from now until about the 4th of July it would be paid for. Would that be too much pain? Well, how about a 50% increase in all taxes between now and Haloween, that would pay for it too.

Of course it won't be paid for that way, in fact it will never be paid for at all. What will happen is that the amount will be added to the debt and then we will, by way of perpetual self refinancing, simply pay interest on the amount forever. I just wanted everyone to realize that while the amount sounds incomprehensivly large in fact its just a portion - less than half - of a year's revnue in this day and age.

[yodoobo]

1. One trillion is enough to pay you a salary of $100,000 a year

for 10 million years


Or pay 10 million people a lump sum of $100,000

The numbers are staggering.

Imagine what we could do if we just paid the 10 million poorest people in the country $100,000 to do with as they wish?

There would be no housing problem or unemployment problem anymore.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Some call it a bailout, others call it a budget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States


For 2009, the base budget rose to US$515.4 billion, with a total of US$651.2 billion when emergency discretionary spending and supplemental spending are included.<1> This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (~$9.3 billion, which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs (~$33.2 billion), interest on debt incurred in past wars, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, ~$170 billion in 2007) - the United States government is currently spending at the rate of approximately $1 trillion per year for all defense-related purposes. <2>

[Oregone]

3. Its better to over-spend on measures that will effectively stimulate the economy

Rather than tax-sluts.

[Hydra]

4. What's another hundred billion when you are borrowing 800?

I'd rather they go overboard- FAR overboard in restoring all of the stuff Bush killed in his 8 years of Military spending, corporate welfare and ignoring the rest.

There's plenty of work for us to do cleaning up the mess and working toward the future, but too many people would rather stay where we are...in Hell.

[Horse with no Name]

5. IF you have ever been behind in your own finances

and I have had some hard times in my past, but it is better to borrow enough to make you solvent and start from scratch. That is the only way to make your budget work.

[Hydra]

6. That's the point

I never had the credit required to borrow what I needed to get out of trouble, but the gov't doesn't have that problem. Better that we get back on our feet and productive than some sort of half measure where we're still drowning, as you said.