Currently our national debt is more than $27 trillion. Let me give you some idea of how much that is. Some people have explained it as 1 million seconds ago this and 1 billion seconds ago that; but let me explain it in a way that most people could understand.

Let’s say that 100,000 students graduate from college and they are all 22 years old and they work for 43 years until they retire. Instead of actually going to work, they count for a living. They count one number every eight seconds. Believe me when they get to the billions it will be at least eight seconds per number counted. They count eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks a year for 43 years. After all that, you add all the numbers together of all 100,000 and it adds up to less than 4 trillion.

Sort of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Now next time you hear the government is spending a trillion dollars on some government program, remember this example.

Dennis Hager

Jim Thorpe