Dollars and cents of war and debt

I am going to make this very easy for you.

1. A million has six zeros, and a billion has nine. If there were only one million people in the U.S., we each would have to contribute $1,000 to make up a billion, but since there are 300 million of us, it only costs us about $3.30 each to make up a billion dollars.

2. The war in Iraq is costing us about 12 billion dollars a month.

3. If we each gave $3.30 twelve times a month, we would pay our fair share of the war's cost.

4. That amounts to about $40 a month. That's not too bad, except in a year's time it amounts to about $500. Now we are starting to get serious.

5. The war has gone on for nearly five years and the total cost to date is about $600 billion. So, multiply 600 times the $3.30 mentioned above and the cost to each one of us is about $2,000. Still not too bad, I guess.

6. Our national debt is listed in trillions and it presently amounts to about $9 trillion. For trillions you have to add have three more zeros. So, for each trillion we owe, each of you would have to pony up $3,300 and now we each owe about $30,000.

7. How can any of us possibly pay our fair share? Well, I never give you a problem without providing an answer, so here goes.

8. We are each going to live about 80 years. Now if each of us would simply send the government one dollar each day of our life, the debt would be paid. Of course, that doesn't take into account the miracles of compounding, so our actual individual debts would be closer to $60,000 but with the advance in stem cell research you will soon be living to an age of 160 years.

9. So keep those dollars rolling. Sent them to George W. Bush, General delivery. Crawford, Texas.

10. God Bless America. And that is a commandment.

Joseph Russell Vannier

Hoffman Estates