With the current situation on Wall Street and the men and women in Washington tossing around 700 Billion dollars in bailout money I decided to refresh everyone on what a Billion is!
Enjoy
Jenn
What is a BILLION??
This is too true to be funny.
The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.
A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.
While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans. It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division
Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean?
A. Well, if you are one of 484, 674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516, 528.
B.. Or if you have one of the 188, 251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1, 329, 787.
C. Or if you are a family of four, your family gets $2, 066, 012.
Washington , D.C .. HELLO!!! ... Are all your calculators broken??
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Perm it Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax) ,
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) ,
Liquor Tax ,
Luxury Tax ,
Marriage License Tax ,
Medicare Tax ,
Property Tax ,
Real Estate Tax ,
Service charge taxes ,
Social Security Tax ,
Road Usage Tax (Truckers) ,
Sales Taxes ,
Recreational Vehicle Tax ,
School Tax ,
State Income Tax ,
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) ,
Telephone Federal Excise Tax ,
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax ,
Telephone Federal , State and Local Surcharge Tax ,
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax ,
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax ,
Telephone State and Local Tax ,
Telephone Usage Charge Tax ,
Utility Tax ,
Vehicle License Registration Tax ,
Vehicle Sales Tax ,
Watercraft Registration Tax ,
Well Permit Tax ,
Workers Compensation Tax.
-------------------------------------------------------------
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago,
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened? Can you spell 'politicians!'
And I still have to 'press
1' for English to call my represenative.
© Copyright 2009
22 comments
Really puts things into perspective. May not be anything near what we would all like to hear, but you cant debate those facts.
Thanks Jenn
Worth passing on thanks Jenn
This is 1 million pennies
To have 1 BILLION pennies you would need 1000 of those cases!
Ugh! Pitiful! Oh yeah... and licenses for dogs get taxed and not cats??? No wonder I can't claim my kitties on my taxes? Pffft !!
LMAO
Ah well.... YOU GOTTA LAUGH TO KEEP FROM CRYIN, 'ey?
and i do agree with you terrrible terrible and WE THE PEOPLE keep letting it happen. america lets wake up and see wat has happened in just the last 8 years alone.
this is our 1st trillion dollar president EVER IN HISTORY AGAIN TRILLION DOLLAR PRESIDENT but not the 1st president to be involved in WAR ..
our dollar dropped 6cents alone last weeks .... soon we will be lower then the MEXICAN DOLLAR ... NOT THE WAY WE WANT TO GO ...GREAT BLOG....
Great 1 Jenn! Thanks for the insight.
Very nice to see spam from you again...missed ya
My grandma use to have a saying that would be appropriate for this country now days, it has "gone to hell in a hand basket" , thanks George W !
....Tc....
i've been a taxpayer for more than forty years. i was pissed off when i looked at my first paystub and saw all the taxes. about two hours later i got over it.
some people just never get over it. i respect their point of view.
in my opinion taxes are just no big deal. it does irk me to know that there is rampant fraud and corruption in goverment and i resent that my tax money is often wasted. nevertheless, taxes pay for services and programs we all benefit from so i willingly pay them.
taxes have been fairly consistent over my lifetime. i've seen democrat and republican presidents come and go. no one has ever significantly raised or lowered my taxes.
and here's the thing that really amazes me. even though i'm not rich and even though i pay all the above taxes, if they actually did raise my federal income tax by, say, 5%, it wouldn't be the end of the world. i wouldn't starve, i wouldn't lose my house, i wouldn't have to cancel my vacation. i wouldn't like it, i would probably gripe about it, but i would move on.
we live in the most technologically advanced society in the history of the world. our needs are far different than they were 100 years ago. we demand more of our government. there's a huge cost to run the operation.
sure, we should try find and eliminate fraud and waste. we should try to have the smallest government possible. however, in a country as large as we are, the smallest possible government is going to be huge.
it is said the goverment spends more money every second than all the taxes you will pay in your lifetime. it's the nature of the beast.
government is a necessary evil. as long as we're going to put up with it, i think it's reasonable to expect some social services. the trend seems to be going to fewer and fewer social services, but taxes never fall accordingly.
remember the cheering when president bush announced his tax cuts? he said americans we're overtaxed and he was going to give the money back to the people. did your taxes go down? of course not. taxes are as inevitable as death.
we should not balk at paying taxes to support our goverment if we are the great country we purport to be.