One billion dollars is a lot of money. But when it comes to our government representatives, a billion dollars is like passing someone a 20. It boggles the mind how casually they throw around billion dollar figures. Case in point, the state of California is experiencing a $14 billiion dollar shortfall. In spite of that fact, the governor and the legislature spent a lot of time and advertising money promoting a $14 billion dollar health care package. This would be in addition to the $14 billion dollar debt for a total debt of $28 billion dollars. That would be an additional $667 tax on every man, woman, and child in the state.

And then there is the legislatures of Louisiana who requested $250 billion dollars for Katrina disaster relief. This is in addition to the $63 billion dollars that have already been approved. Now there are 188,251 homes in New Orleans. $250 billion dollars would allow you to spend $1,329,787 per home or you could give $516,528 dollars to every man, woman, and child in the city. You can read a good article about this request at the Washington Post.

So just how much is a billion. This number is so large and abstract that most people don't realize just how big it is. Below is a classic example of just how big a billion is. I have updated the dates a little bit from the original and added my own twists, but the concept is the same. A billion is a very large number!

How big is a billion:

Today is February 18, 2008. One billion seconds ago it was 1976. Gerald Ford was the President of the U.S. The number one box office hit was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest, and the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X.

One billion minutes ago the Emperor Trajan was leading the Roman army to victory in what is now modern day Romainia.

One billion hours ago Neanderthals and Homo sapiens shared the planet.

One billion days ago the first known stone tools were starting to be used by hominids such as Homo habilis (Handy Man).

The U.S. government spends one billion dollars every 3.5 hours*.

So the next time a government official tells you that they need more money, stop and think. Does the government need to spend billions of more dollars, or do they need to better manage our money?

- Thomas Paine 2

* Based on an estimated 2007 Federal budget of $2,415,852,000,000.

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