Andy Weighs In On The National Debt

(CBS)  The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney.

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You'd probably be surprised to hear me say there are quite a few things I don't know anything about, but you can't worry about everything you don't know because no on else seems to know much about those things either.

I saw a story in the paper that said our national debt is now over $11 trillion. I also know this because the other day I walked past The National Debt Clock they have off Sixth Avenue here in New York. They have to put up a new clock pretty soon so that it will register a quadrillion dollars.

One of the things I don't know is how much a trillion dollars is and I know a quadrillion is a lot more than that. My dictionary says: "The cardinal number that is equal to 10 to the 12th power."

Does that help you understand how much a trillion dollars is? I don't think the dictionary knows how much it is either. What's a "cardinal number" anyway? How many cheeseburgers could I buy with a cardinal number? Give me something specific that I could understand.

A trillion dollars is 1,000 billion. A billion is 1000 million. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing says it comes up with $700 million in paper money every day. About half of that is in one dollar bills.

It also said the average dollar bill lasts two years. The average $100 bill lasts almost seven and a half years, I don't know about that. I know a hundred dollars doesn't last me seven years.

They say people don't like $100 bills because they're apt to confuse them with dollar bills in their pocket. Now who would say a thing like that? I mean if I have a $100 bill in my pocket, I'm not about to confuse it with a one dollar bill or with a note listing what groceries I should buy, either.

It's a good feeling to have some change in your pocket. Something to jingle. I don't care much for fifty cent pieces but you don't run into them anymore anyway. Silver dollars are just for the coin collectors now.

If politicians had to use silver dollars to pay off our national debt, maybe we wouldn't have one.



Written by Andy Rooney

[darknessesedge]

it will be about 20 trill by the time the current admin is done.

[sjc_1]

Clinton ran $100 billion dollar surpluses the last 3 years of his second term and we were on track to pay down the debt. The Republicans were scrambling to find a way to give that surplus to the rich and the heck with the debt. Now the $5000 billion in debt that Bush racked up needs to be paid down in an economic depression. So much for the tax breaks for the rich trickle down con job.

[noloyalisti]

Yes, and the hypocrite Republicans are pretending they are fiscally responsible. None of them actually were backing Bush. They really were not for spending the country into ruin.

[sjc_1]

Once Reagan figured out that the Social Security Trust Fund could only be invested in Government Treasury Bonds, he spent like crazy on the Pentagon. A one trillion dollar debt became 3 trillion under Reagan and then 4 trillion under Bush Sr. and then 10 trillion under Bush Jr. There is no end to Republican Borrow and Waste when they can spend like mad and not raise taxes.

[campagna777]

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[marklloret]

If we lived in England, a Trillion would be a Billion. A Billion would have been a thousand million. The same way a third floor would have been a second floor, and so on.

[brizzz111]

Andy

Here's another way to think about a trillion dollars. Imagine a stack of nice, new $1000 bills. They are flat, crisp, have a lovely picture of Grover Cleveland on them, and most importantly, they stack well.

A stack of these $1000 bills six inches high would contain about 1000 bills, or a total value of about $1 million. If the stack were 500 feet high, which I imagine is about the height of the Washington Monument, the value of all the bills in the stack would be about $1 billion.

But to represent a TRILLION dollars, this stack of crisp $1000 bills would have to be 95 miles high!! This is about 10 times as high as the highest-flying commercial aircraft.

Does this help put it in perspecrtive?

[intheusa]

Posted by TKJohnson1948 at 8:12 AM : Apr 6, 2009 that the debt was 8 trillion when George W Bush left office.

Thats not accurate the debt reported by the treasury was closer to $10.5+ trillion when Bush left office, other wise very good post TKJohnson.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

[gold_standard]

If gold were the currency of the realm, at least our savings would be worth something. The pieces of paper the government prints more and more of are not worth anything.

The government and the banks tell you that a gold standard is foolish. But they hate gold only because they can't print gold. Gold cannot be counterfeited--by the government or anybody else!

[rushlimpdrug]

Andy,
Pleeeze do us ALL a favor and retire.

Talking stupid on the television is not in your
best interest.