The current GSA scandal is continuing to make news in Washington with the headline that $820,000 was wasted on a lavish Vegas convention in 2010. Heads are rolling, cable news is chattering, hearings on Capitol Hill are ongoing, and most agree that “Big Government” has run amok.
One of the reasons why this scandal has generated such outrage, I believe, is the fact that everyone can wrap their arms around $820,000.
For example, according to the US Census the average sales price of a home is $272,900. So a home three times as much is $818,700, just about what GSA employees spent to party down in Vegas. Every functioning American adult can emotionally connect to the monetary value of $820,000 and even write out that number if asked.
Now, what happens when a “functioning American adult” is asked to write out $15 trillion?
Most likely many people would flunk that test by failing to put enough zeros behind the 15. The amount of $15 trillion is so off the charts it might as well be a gazillion, which according to its definition on Wikipedia is an indefinite and fictitious number.
So, for those unsure what $15,000,000,000,000 looks like, here it is.
Therein lays the problem confronting our nation during this election season.
For at this writing the national debt of the United States of America is $15,680,314,250,419. (increasing by the second) which is also a rather indefinite and fictitious number in the minds of most voters and that is most unfortunate.
Even more unfortunate is most Americans are unaware that in January of this year a huge disgraceful milestone was reached. It was then that the amount we owed on our national credit card surpassed what our economy generates (gross domestic product), commonly known as GDP.
On a more personal level it would be as if your credit card bills were more than your annual salary.
Now, wouldn’t that keep you up at night? What should also keep our elected leaders up at night is never in the history of the world has a nation been in as much debt as we are now.
Also, I am quite sure that most Americans are not aware of this disturbing fact.
Now, since math education is such a hot button issue, I would like to propose a national math voter test that every American citizen must complete before being able to cast a vote in November. (Even MORE important than showing a voter ID)
The object of the test is learning to write out $16,000,000,000,000 because that is the amount the federal debt will be in the month before the election.
$16 trillion should not be an indefinite and fictitious number to the voters in 2012.
In fact, that number adds up to doom for our nation’s future and should be as familiar to every American as GSA’s infamous $820,000.
The second part of my proposed national math test is for voters to take a hard look at what I consider the scariest web site on the planet.
That site is the US Debt Clock aka the ticking time bomb. Every American should be mandated to look at that web site and understand what it means to them and their children before being eligible to cast a vote.
Here is a sad fact to note that I mentioned earlier.
The clock says our national debt is $15.6 trillion and our Gross Domestic Product is $15.1 trillion. Tutors will be made available to explain whatever part of that equation you don’t understand.
The third part of the national mandated math voter test (most likely paid for by a grant from the Romney campaign), would be to make all voters aware of these three numbers.
First is $9.7 trillion or what the national debt was on this day in 2008 when then Senator Barack Obama was railing against government spending on the campaign stump.
Second is $15.7 trillion or what the national debt is today.
Third is $21.7 trillion, what the national debt would be on this day in 2016 projected out at current spending levels.
If only Americans and the media would get as outraged about these numbers as they are about the $820,000 GSA spent on clowns and mind readers at the Vegas convention, than perhaps we would have a national election that puts the “ticking time bomb” at the center of our national stage. Maybe even run it at the bottom of every news channel or feature it in a skit on Saturday Night Live.
Only then, if voters truly knew just how broke we are as a nation, perhaps we would all come together to solve the problem and save the nation.
Be mindful of how the first step in solving any problem is realizing that there is a problem, which is itself a real problem regarding the debt issue.
For according to a recent Gallup poll only 11% of Americans think the federal budget deficit/federal debt is the most important problem facing our country today.
So perhaps the Romney campaign should start there. Beat this drum until every American voter is aware and outraged about our $15.6 trillion debt and actually knows how many zeros there are in that number.
Americans should also be mandated to look at that ticking time bomb of a debt clock once again before they vote to reelect President Barack Obama – who just happens to be the biggest spending president in our history — increasing the national debt by $5 trillion since taking office.
Racist.
\sarcasm
We wanted tests (and some places had them). They were outlawed by the Feds as discriminatory.
There were property requirements. No matter how small they were, they were still discriminatory.
Now simply proving you are who you say you are is discriminatory.
The govenment seems to think that having voters who are broke, stupid, and have no name they are willing to claim is a public policy goal.
It’s always easier to shear stupid, lazy, unidentified sheep.
Those tests were outlawed as discriminatory because they were.
The property requirements were discriminatory, but they were removed before the issue of ethnic or sexual discrimination were issues.
If we had those tests you are using as a strawman, in the same way they are used by the opponents of voter ID, you would fail them because of how you are overlooking the very real discrimination of those tests and your equation of them with the discrimination of the tests.
Perhaps you should be happy there is a government willing and able to protect your voting rights, rather than disparaging it because of the efforts of others to subvert it.
Please describe, in great detail, how property requirements can possibly be discriminatory. Not back when, but now.
For that matter, given the fact that liberals run educational our educational system, please describe how any liberal could possibly complain that any voter pass a literacy test?
Sounds like an admission of failure to me.
Haven’t heard that written tests are racist? The DOJ is suing a Florida city for giving written tests for Fire Fighter management promotions.
Pass the Obama stash please.
To help the uninformed we should consider holding signs
outside of polling places with the 16 trillion figure.
This could have a larger impact on voters than the individual
candidates pamphlets.
REALLY LIKE THIS IDEA. Will send it along to some powers that be. But there needs to be some education behind it like the piece discusses.
There is a video of a Tea Party rally in California where
individuals each held one number including all 12 zeros.
(I think it was from a Zombie post on PJM.) One additional
sign could state “national debt”.
I was going to suggest this to the Tea Party group I belong
to. During 2010 pre election our group meet weekly at different
major intersections with signs for those we supported. Good response!
It would certainly be an eye catcher.
National debt:
1776-2008, 232 years = $ 9,700,000,000,000
1776-2012, 236 years = $15,700,000,000,000
Difference?
2008-2012, 4 years = $ 6,000,000,000,000
The State I live in, Maryland, passed a law that “Individuals Under Guardianship for Mental Disability” are allowed to vote, in 2010! I was a poll worker that fall. It was incredibly depressing to see many of these poor souls, heads down, being led in by their (SEIU ?)caretakers to vote. I can not imagine their having garnered independent knowledge of the candidates and issues and making informed selections. Maryland has also passed rights for “Citizens Who Have Not Lived in the United States, who have a parent who is a resident of the State, is considered a resident of the State for purposes of qualifying to register to vote, provided the individual has not established a domicile outside the State and will have the “Right to Vote.” Of course the legislators continue to vote down any “Voter ID Law.” We are after all a sanctuary state with sanctuary jurisdictions.
Voting Rights, particularly in Blue States are clearly under assault!
A mandated legitimate test would be ever so welcome by this U.S./Maryland citizen/voter!
Did their caretakers “help” them vote by being in the polling booth with them?
I’m cold-hearted; I’d say if you can’t make it to the polls on voting day and mark the ballot ON YOUR OWN, then, sorry, you can’t vote. Can’t read English? Sorry, can’t vote.
My role was passing out campaign literature (for conservatives) outside. My suspicions are that the “caretakers” had to help, but I can’t say.
I’m with you on any and all measures to foster “legitimacy!”
There is one and only one way the left will ever agree to universal voter ID requirements: Widespread vote fraud benefiting Republicans. Vote early and often, ladies and gentlemen.
This article is about adding zeroes to numbers regarding the budget. This also applies to voting, committees, etc. Adding more people does not necessarily mean an increase in quality of the outcome.
The Founders knew this and that is why the franchise was not universal. All that has happened by making the franchise universal was to give the vote to people who vote for living, that is to say people on the dole or otherwise getting handouts from government that are paid for by those who still work and pay taxes. In other words, universal suffrage brought us socialism.
“…it would be as if your credit card bills were more than your annual salary.”
I keep hearing this analogy being made and it’s simply not accurate. I have no credit card debt and paid off my student loans within a couple of years of entering the workforce. By most definitions, I live a debt-free life. Still,
my wife an I carry a home mortgage that’s several times our combined salaries.
As long as we make the necessary payments, we enjoy the benefit of living in our home over the lifetime of the mortgage (and perhaps longer).
Using your analogy, one could argue that $15T isn’t a big deal when comparing it to a family budget that also includes the debt service of a home mortgage.
How much of the current $15T national debt is obligated against long-term capital infrastructure like the $150M overpass system recently added to connect our community to interstate 580? We will enjoy the benefits of that overpass for the next 30-40 years, much of that with only minor maintenance. This is the sort of arguments being used to justify spending on high-speed rail boondoggles.
Simply noting that $15T is a really big and scary number won’t sway people. Personalizing it may not either. With few exceptions, we’ve survived 30+ years with significant deficits with no obvious negative externalities. $15T is a lot, but unless we put it in context and can identify an obvious downside, I don’t think harping over the debt is going to connect or significantly sway voters that currently don’t care about it.
One word – Greece.