Local Opinion: The Debt Ceiling drama

The debt ceiling is a major topic. It has always been increased when necessary, and the United States has never defaulted on its debts. The first week of June 2023 had been established as when the U.S. cannot pay its debts without raising the debt ceiling.

The debate over raising the debt ceiling seems to have come to a potential agreement. Spending cuts have been the issue holding up the process. No group wants cuts made against their benefit. Defense spending is seldom cut in spite of waste and overpayment for many items. Here are some random military equipment costs: An F-22 Raptor jet is $350 million. A B-2 Stealth bomber is $737 million. An M-2 Abrams tank is $10 million. Patriot missiles are $4 million. Think of the massive costs of all military spending combined.

There are many examples of wasteful spending. Congress gave $500,000 to paint a design on a Boeing 737. There are endless other bizarre examples. One is $7 million for space alien detection. The best may be The Missing $25 Billion. The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors did not know who, where, or on what it was spent. There is too much wasteful spending, and it needs tightening, just as we must do with our own finances.

The present debt ceiling is $31 trillion, and governmental spending is approximately $6.5 trillion. The size of those numbers is hard to comprehend. There may not be a clear understanding without comparing them to everyday, familiar numbers. Here are some examples:

If you were to count to one million without stopping, one number per second, it would take about 11 days. Counting to a billion would take 32 years. Counting to a trillion would take 32,000 years. Counting to the amount of the debt ceiling would take an incredible 992,000 years.

Imagine a box one foot high, wide and deep. Now imagine it full of sand. There are approximately a billion grains of sand in a cubic foot. Think of a swimming pool emptied of water that is 310 feet long, a little longer than a football field. It is 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep, filled with sand. In that 31,000 cubic feet space are approximately 31 trillion grains of sand. Now think that each of those grains of sand equalling a dollar.

No individual has ever been worth a trillion dollars. Only one family, the Rothschilds of banking fame, has ever reached that figure. They could finance wars in Europe. The wealthiest United States family is likely the Waltons, with massive income per day. Even with that, they are not worth a trillion dollars.

The wealthiest United States individuals are Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Elon Musk of Tesla, both having reached nearly $200 billion, depending on stock prices. The wealthiest investor is Warren Buffet, worth an average of $110 billion. There are foreign individuals who are worth vast amounts, including Vladimir Putin and some oil-rich rulers.

To put these numbers into more practical perspective, consider that Tucson’s population is about 540,000. If $1 million were divided equally between them, each person would receive $1.85. Dividing $1 billion, each would receive $1,851. Dividing $1 trillion, each person would get $1,851,851 — almost two million dollars each. Dividing the debt ceiling amount of $31 trillion, each person would get $57.4 million. If the $31 trillion were divided equally among all United States citizens of all ages, each person would receive $93,000 or so.

When we consider all the large numbers involved with debts and spending, it is little wonder that there is confusion and disagreement. It truly is incomprehensible.