What would you buy with a trillion dollars?

On the “Family Research Council Blog,” (www.frc.org), Tom McClusky asks the question, “What would you buy with a trillion dollars?”

$1,000,000,000,000 is, of course, the amount that Washington politicians are intent on spending in an effort to stimulate the economy.

As of last Tuesday, almost 55 percent of Americans are against the plan, with 41 percent believing that they will not be affected by the plan.

One poll stated that nearly 85 percent of Americans believe that the stimulus package will not jump-start the economy within the next year, although a recent Gallup Poll states that 75 percent of Americans want a stimulus package passed. A whopping 80 percent of Americans are currently dissatisfied with the direction the country is headed.

McClusky said, “Trying to wrap my mind around that (a trillion dollars), I found some interesting figures what you could get with a trillion dollars. Some examples:

“If you stack up $1,000 bills, $1 trillion would need a pile that is 80 miles high. $1 trillion is more than the combined gross revenues of Walmart, Exxon, General Motors and Ford. Assuming the United States consumes about 17 billion barrels of oil a year and assuming the cost of a barrel of oil is about $65, a trillion dollars will buy an entire year’s worth of oil for the USA.

“You could buy a thousand Queen Mary 2s with accommodations for 2,620 passengers. With a population of approximately 300 million people, you could give away $1 trillion by giving every man, woman and child in the U.S. $3,400 each. We could buy everyone on Earth an iPod. We could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with 23.5-karat gold leaf. We could buy 16.6 million Habitat for Humanity houses. We could hire 1.9 million additional teachers.”

McClusky continued, “In my search, I found a great website that helps you buy luxury and charitable items trying to add up to a trillion dollars. It was based on the spending involved with the Iraq War, but it works with out of control spending too. Here is the list I came up with:

“You could buy:

“8,700 Porsche 911 Turbos ($126,000 each): $1,097,940,000

“New York Yankees: $1,200,000,000

“New York Mets: $482,000,000

“Every NFL franchise: $8,600,000,000

“Dracula’s Romanian castle: $140,000,000

“1,000 60 SE Lear jets ($11,595,000 each): $11,595,000,000

“Denver International Airport: $4,822,000,000

“10 Picasso’s (113,400,000 each): $1,134,000,000

“Hard Rock Casino in Vegas: $770,000,000

“Hong Kong Disneyland: $3,500,000,000

“South Pacific island of Katafanga: $38,900,000

“Buy the whole world 100 cans of Coke: $650,000,000,000

“Buy 50 Super bowl ads ($2,600,000 each): $130,000,000

“Build 1,001 Habitat for Humanity houses (at $60,000 each): $600,060,000

“Build 2,000 miles of Metro rail ($150,000,000 per a mile of track): $300,000,000,000

“Build 250 hospitals in Third World nations ($41,300,000 each): $10,325,000,000

“Produce your own Hollywood movie: $150,000,000

“Buy the Maltese Falcon, the world’s most expensive yacht: $100,000,000

“Buy 2 Napa Valley wineries ($34,000,000 each): $68,000,000

“Buy 26 McDonald’s franchises ($1,000,000 each): $26,000,000.”

All that, McClusky says, adds up to $1,000,000,000,000.00 (One trillion dollars).

Someone, of course, is going to have to foot the bill. Three guesses who that will be.

Congress, which currently has a 12 percent approval rating, will likely determine where the trillion bucks will go.

Personally, I like the “... you could give away $1 trillion by giving every man, woman and child in the U.S. $ 3,400 each.” After all, that’s where the folks in Washington are getting the money anyway.

[David Epps is the pastor of Christ the King Church, 4881 Hwy. 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA 30277, between Peachtree City and Newnan. Services are held Sundays at 8:30 and 10 a.m. He serves as a bishop to the Diocese of the Mid-South and is also the mission pastor of Christ the King Church in Champaign, IL. He may be contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.]