Zoriah Miller photo
- A trillion has 12 zeros.
- A trillion dollars is a million million dollars.
- A stack of one trillion dollar bills would stand more than 55,000 miles high. That’s more than twice the distance around the earth’s equator.
- A stack of one trillion dollar bills would weigh more than one million tons and would exceed the combined weight of both World Trade buildings.
- One trillion dollars is more than the combined 2007 budget of every defense department of every nation on our planet.
- With a trillion dollars the Treasury could have sent a check for more than $150 to every human being on earth or $3,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
- It would take almost three decades to spend a trillion dollars at $1,000 per second, and if spending at this rate occurred only during business hours, more than 120 years would be required to dispense the sum.
Conservative estimates of the Iraq war’s cost are set at $3 trillion so far.
The Bush administration shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury in 2003 that shows the U.S. faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totaling at least $44 trillion (in 2003 U.S. dollars). But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits.
But those who are concerned about socialism need not worry, the President’s, 2009, $3 trillion plus budget would provide some $20.5 billion less than last year for domestic discretionary programs outside of homeland security. It's a start.
Can you say quadrillion?
