Letter to the Editor: Debt

Dear Editor:

Here are some interesting facts about the national debt from www.PresidentialDebt.org.

Barack Obama increased the debt by $6,049,049,108,315 in 52 months.

George Bush Jr. increased the debt by $5,017,588,850,915 in 8 years.

Ronald Reagan increased the debt by $1,754,182,000,000 in 8 years.

Bill Clinton increased the debt by $1,505,207,013,697 in 8 years.

George Bush Sr. increased the debt by $1,492,617,000,000 in 4 years.

The national debt has increased $15,818,643,972,927 since January 20, 1981. As of May 29, 2013 the national debt stands at $16,748,853,972,927, just over $52,150 per man, woman and child in the United States (not counting illegals).

To give you an idea of how much money that really is, if you had a nice neat stack of $100 bills 40 inches high you would have a million dollars (250 bills per inch). If you could keep it from falling over, a billion dollars would be 3,333 feet high. A trillion dollars is a stack of $100 bills 631 miles high.

The national debt is 16.75 times that, or 10,570 miles high, or a little more than 1/3 of the way around the earth at the equator. That’s a lot of money, folks.

The government is out of control! We can blame them all, not just Republicans or Democrats.

Jack Charchol

Ava, Mo.