John Thune explains GOP's sophisticated thinking on stimulus: a trillion is BIG!

[ProfessorPlum]

Run time: 02:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6FKPMjDHDA   Posted on YouTube: February 03, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 03, 2009 By DU Member: ProfessorPlum Views on DU: 901

 
I wonder how big the stack of money which has been wasted in Iraq (or "lost" by the Pentagon) would be.

[The Animator]

1. I wonder how much his "visual aides" cost to produce

What the hell was the point of that?

[Jack Rabbit]

2. To put this argument into some historical perspective

There's nothing novel about Senator Thune is doing. I used to see the same kind of graphic information about $1 billion.

For example, if you spent money at the rate of a dollar per minute, it would take from the time of Christ until now to spend $1 billion.

Now we can go back to the dawn of man (about 2 million years), spend at the rate of a dollar per minute in order to reach the present time with $1 trillion.

All this really tells us is how many minutes there are in 2000 or 2 million years. In Senator Thune's examples, we discover the length and thickness of American currency.

Nobody needs to be told that a trillion dollars is a lot of money. We are in a lot of trouble. The question is whether the money will be well spent. Knowing the thickness of our currency or the number of years a trillion minutes make doesn't answer that question.

[TheEuclideanOne]

10. Two things about this piss me off

1) It is sad that nobody does visuals about a billion dollars because we are in such an extreme mess that 1 billion dollars does not seem like a lot of money anymore. It sure used to, though.

2) This AssHat acts like he just discovered this? Where was he when the last administration was racking up huge deficits and bailing out every business under the sun?

[Jack Rabbit]

16. The old value of a billion dollars will be missed

A billion dollars here and a billion dollars there; pretty soon, you're talking about real money.
-- attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen (R-Ill), senate minority leader in the 1950s and 60s.

Can't they even think in terms of less than a billion dollars at the Pentagon?
-- Senator George McGovern (D-SD), Democratic presidential nominee in 1972, responding to criticism from Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that McGovern's proposed leaner defense budget should include "a billion dollars for white flags."

[WhoIsNumberNone]

3. You've just Gotta love that Republican logic-

So they have finally reached the understanding that a trillion dollars is a lot of money? Where was this guy when Georgie Porgie was running up the national debt? Probably out waving a flag somewhere.

I remember hearing this same sort of thing when Reagan was out blowing our grandkids' college money- Not from Republicans of course- A trillion dollars only seems like a lot to them when a Democrat wants to spend it on something other than bombs.

[DirtyJersey]

4. Wow this guy is an idiot

What a complete waste of time. An intelligent person could make an argument that it's too much money to spend, but that would involve an explanation based on economics. This is like a presentation to a fourth grade class.

[pasto76]

5. So...if you stack hundred dollar bills on top of each other, you get a stack of $100 bills?

Wow. Im glad I know that now.

I wish a senator had asked to use his same visual aids and then applied that to Iraq.

[Career Prole]

6. Judd Gregg doesn't know what a trillion is.

He's admitted as much.
Secretary of Commerce Gregg?

[mlevans]

7. Well...that was bloody pathetic. n/t

[Richd506]

8. If you took every stupid thing ever said by a Republican and stacked them

It would be out of this solar system!

[ProfessorPlum]

9. If you took every Republican congresscritter and laid them end to end,

I promise to post a picture of it on DU.

[Master Payne]

11. 689 miles high?

Wow! A space elevator for only a Trillion Dollars. I think we should start building it right away

[underpants]

13. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[underpants]

12. I was going to ask how many times that would wrap around Iraq but you covered that

689 miles HIGH

These Republicans must smoke weed in a "Phelp-esque" way

[edc]

14. Brilliant

:think: Certainly, Senator Thune knows that his graphic comparison works because the earth has a circumference of 24,860 miles at the equator and a dollar bill is 6.14in. wide and 0.0043in. thick. And while this is interesting stuff for math nerds like me and impressionable Republicans, it is also irrelevant. Unless you consider that Sen. Thune and his hero George W. Bush helped run up a stack of deficit dollars that would reach 5,000 miles into space and 180 times around the earth with little good and a lot of bad to show for it.

[DUlover2909]

15. Why not 689 miles wide? Or 689 miles deep? Oh, that's cuz space is so scary and big.

A map of Texas with bills on their side wouldn't be as scary. I say we cut the thickness of our bills in half, that way we won't spend as much. How thick would a credit card with a $Trillion credit limit be?