Trent's Blog
$15 Trillion -- Our National Debt, In Pictures
Posted By: Trent Franks on November 16, 2011
Filed Under: Economy Budget Debt
Today, the national debt crossed the $15 trillion mark. Many in Washington, D.C. have gotten accustomed to throwing such large numbers around, sometimes seemingly forgetting that those nearly inconprehensible numbers represent real money. The below pictures put into perspective just how much money $15 trillion really is.
For some perspective, here is a single $100 bill:
This is what $10,000 in $100 bills looks like:
$1 Million:
$100 Million (with $1 Million and $10,000 next to it, for size comparison), which fits on a standard shipping pallet:
$1 Billion (You would have to stack the ten pallets pictured FOUR times to equal the amount the United States goes further into debt every single day -- recall that these stacks are made up not of $1 bills, but of individual $100 bills):
This is what $1 Trillion looks like. Note that the pallets in the pictures are stacked two-deep. President Obama has added MORE than $1 trillion to the national debt EVERY year he has been in office. He has singlehandedly added about four times this amount to our debt. His failed, so-called "stimulus" bill alone cost nearly $1 trillion, by itself:
Another perspective on $1 trillion. To put this amount into perspective, if one were to spend $1 MILLION every day from the time Christ was born until today, he still would not have spent a full $1 trillion (nor would he have even spent enough to pay for the aforementioned failed stimulus bill):
Finally, this is $15 trillion -- the amount the United States is in debt, as of today. The pallets are now stacked about thirty deep on an area the size of a regulation football field. The original pallet of $100 Million can be seen pictured in front of the semi-truck.
$114.5 Trillion - This picture represents the United States' "unfunded liabilities." This is the total amount of money the United States knows it owes, but cannot pay. Money owed to services like Medicare and Social Security that the government knows it does not have enough money to fully fund. Since this picture was made, our unfunded liabilities have actually increased by about $2 trillion:
Now, for some perspective, a little reminder of how we got here. Below is a video of House Democrats in 2010 standing and cheering as the debt ceiling was raised by nearly $2 trillion. In other words, we maxed out our credit cards and, instead of cutting spending, we just raised our credit limit to allow ourselves to spend even more.
Many of these same big spenders stand in strident opposition to the only solution that will control what is currently a looming financial disaster: cutting spending, capping future spending, and adding a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The House will be voting tomorrow on a Balanced Budget Amendment and, as I always have, I will be voting in favor of it, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.
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On the Right Tack
Posted By: Congressman Trent Franks on August 4, 2011
Filed Under: Arizona Budget Local Issues Taxes Transportation
In a recent article, "Gosar, Franks on wrong tack," an editorial writer poised the question to her readers: If you think the sweetest sound at the Grand Canyon is the buzz of aircraft motor, not nature, then Arizona Congressmen Paul Gosar and Trent Franks are on your side.
In reality, if you think the sweetest thing about government agencies is their ability to kill family businesses while spending even more tax payers' dollars, then quite possibly this article might be what was sitting next to your coffee the morning of July 29th.
The attack here isn’t on the Grand Canyon, it’s on the US Air Tour Industry that has been providing the elderly, physically limited and time constrained international visitors, the eagle eye view of the Grand Canyon since the late 1930’s.
For the last 17 years the Air Tour industry has met the National Park Service (NPS) standard for “substantial restoration of natural quiet” as defined by the National Park Service by restoring quiet to 50% of the park 75% of the time. This fact was scientifically validated in 2008 by the Volpe Institute in their report to the NPS and the FAA. Though now, NPS is proposing to change the threshold from 50 to 67% by imposing broad new flight restrictions on all air tours from Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada. This will result in significant economic harm on the air tour operators as well as significant job losses impacting over 1,200 employees.
Over the last decade, the National Park Service record will confirm that there have been virtually no visitor written objections to the noise impact of the air tours from the millions of visitors that visit the popular National Park destination.
Air tour operators are prepared to work with the NPS to undertake additional and reasonable measures to improve the soundscape at Grand Canyon still but not at the expense of families' livelihoods. The industry has already accepted caps on the number of flights, curfews to protect visitor experience after sunrise and before sunset, the elimination of many air tour routes, minimum flight altitudes, and flight free zones that protect about 87 percent of the park.
All in all, this preferred alternative is nothing more than a blatant attempt by a government agency to change the rules of the game after their conditions have already been met. I cannot support regulations that terminate American jobs, nor can I allow more tax payer dollars to be siphoned where they need not be.
