Mary Landrieu is asking for only 7.9 days' worth of the American economy ...

WHAT GUMMINT DOES          Pretty soon we're talking serious money - Dirksen Not enough colors though “ This is too true to be funny. The next time you hear a politician use the Word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about Whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, But one advertising agency did a good job of Putting that figure into some perspective in One of it's releases. A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959. B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were Living in the Stone Age. D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet. E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, At the rate our government Is spending it. While this thought is still fresh in our brain.... let's take a look at ... New Orleans ... It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division. Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) Is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS To rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number... What does it mean? A. Well .. If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) You each get $516,528. B. Or... If you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787. C. Or... If you are a family of four... Your family gets $2,066,012. Washington , D. C HELLO! Are all your calculators broken?? Building Permit Tax CDL License Tax Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax Dog License Tax Federal Income Tax (Fed) Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax) IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Luxury Tax Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Service charge Taxes Social Security Tax Road Usage Tax (Truckers) Sales Taxes Recreational Vehicle Tax School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone Federal Excise Tax Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax Telephone State and Local Tax Telephone Usage Charge Tax Utility Tax Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft Registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax (And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes) STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago.... And our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt... We had the largest middle class in the world... And Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What happened? Can you spell 'politicians'! And I still have to Press '1' For English. I hope this goes around the U S A At least 100 times What the heck happened?? I'm wary of facts presented in those harlequin colored, gigantic sized font e-mail blasts we all get, because it's likely that at least some of the content is misstatement, or outright falsehood.  This one (from Metzger- who was just a relay and not the designer) was intriguing enough to throw it against the Google wall and see what stuck.  I got only as far as this from  Daily Kos.  A Conservative Email, And A Polite Rebuttal.  Of all the charges made I expected the numbers would be picked apart, probably using SNOPES, a favorite agitproppist tool.  But no.  Here is the crux of the response. Yes, a billion seems like a very large number, especially as presented in the email below. Let's not forget, however, that the U.S. economy generates 11.5 trillion dollars in output every year - that's practically $365,000 every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every year. By the method below of reckoning how much a billion is, Mary Landrieu is asking for only 7.9 days' worth of the American economy to rebuild one of its formerly premier cities. 7.9 days is not much! That's a vacation to a lot of people. The rest of his screed travels the same state road (to serfdom, ahem).  - There was no Social Security.  If you had no money when you got too old to work, you lived off of your family, or you starved. - There was no Medicare.  If you got sick and couldn't afford to pay the doctor, you died before your time. - There was no Medicaid.  If you were poor and sick and couldn't afford to pay the doctor, you died. - There were no governmental administrations mandating workplace safety; if you got injured on the job, and hundreds of thousands did every year, tough luck - your employer didn't have to take care of you and you couldn't sue them.  They got off scot-free while you starved. A chasm so wide as to be unbridgeable,  I'd say.    ASIDE: It's been brought to public attention several times during, and since Katrina,  that pre-Nanny State hurricanes (like the one in 1915, that similarly devastated New Orleans)  were handled by Louisianan's without a farthing's worth of assistance  from the Federal government.   ”