This should make most American MAD, but it won't...
As Senate Republicans and Democrats continue to bicker over the details of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner waits in the wings ready to unveil yet another bank bailout bill. But almost forgotten in the headlong rush to devise measures to create jobs and save the financial system is the total cost of the government’s commitment to solving the economic crisis. Bloomberg News reported yesterday (Monday) that the tally of U.S. government spending could reach as much as $9.7 trillion - enough to pay off more than 90% of the nation’s home mortgages....“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”
So is the $9.7 trillion pledged by the government going to be enough to pull the U.S. economy out of the fire? Who knows? But here are a few facts:
* $9.7 trillion would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world, Bloomberg reported.
* It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
* And it’s almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the United States, calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve.
