I don’t think many people have a true understanding and appreciation of how much money this is. How much came right out of your paycheck and pocket in one way or another. Let’s play a little game.

Wouldn’t you be happy with a million dollars? Wouldn’t it be great to be a millionaire? I assume you already know what a million is, it’s a thousand thousand.

A billion dollars is a thousand million. How long has it been since you tried, like a child, to count to a thousand. Try it.

Start counting by ones. And while you’re at it, remember that each unit is in millions. In other words, count: one million, two million, three million, four million and so on until you get to a thousand, if you ever do.

Do you get a picture of ten stacks of one hundred million each? I hope so. That’s one billion. If each of these stacks was made up of $100 bills without falling over, each stack would be 330 feet high. How does that grab you? Ten stacks, each stack 33 stories high equals one billion dollars.

Once you realize precisely how much a billion dollars is, once you can truly visualize it, then remember that last year your government got 237 of these from you. Mostly from the working stiffs of America.

$94.7 billion came from extra Social Security payments you made last year. Money Social Security didn’t need in order to send monthly checks to all of the retired and disabled in the country. Pure profit.

$55.1 billion came from extra Medicare, gas taxes and dozens of other entitlements that you paid, some of which came right out of each paycheck. Others were whenever you bought certain things like gas, went somewhere like an airport, or bought something like a boat license.

The biggest entitlements are Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment taxes. But there are many others bringing in lesser amounts. FICA tax alone is 15.3 percent of your payroll. These have become slush funds for the government.

Entitlement means that you’re entitled to what you paid for. For example, gas taxes are supposed to go for highway repair and maintenance. Unemployment taxes to carry the unemployed until they can find work. You paid for it, you are “entitled” to it. The money is not supposed to be used anywhere else.

So far, we’ve got a grand subtotal of about $150 billion, just from entitlements. The other $87 billion came from extra income taxes Americans paid last year.

Like it or not, the rich pay most of the income tax. But the pain’s the same. A dollar lost by a homeless person hurts just as much as a thousand dollars lost by a wealthy person. And some people are very, very wealthy. Not me.

The richest people in this country are probably those who own the Federal Reserve, a private central banking phenomenon set up in 1913 and after our founding fathers said it couldn’t and shouldn’t be done. If you can find out who owns the “A” stock of the Federal Reserve, you’re a better man than me Charlie Brown. These are Alan Greenspeak’s real bosses and the reason he can talk down to millionaire politicians. They make millions a day, just in interest, and hold all of the gold that used to be in Fort Knox. (But we digress, let’s get back at it.)

The government is now talking about tax breaks. Giving some of the expected income tax money back to the taxpayers.

They are only arguing about how much to give back in income taxes, not entitlements. There is absolutely no plan to reduce the Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement taxes paid by working people. And, believe me, none of these are in trouble. The only problem they have is that the government steals their funds instead of putting that extra money to work for us. (Another long subject)

The government’s accountants, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Government Accounting Office (GAO), estimate future income tax surpluses in the trillions. About $2.4 trillion extra over the next ten years. As long as the economy is healthy.

What they expect from future entitlement tax surplus is even greater, just like it was the big chunk of the surplus last year. Entitlement money they fully intend to keep/steal. Most of them have stopped using the word “entitlement.” It’s not in their vocabulary or “spin” anymore.

George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency on the platform of a $1.6 trillion income tax break over the next ten years. He even promised to spread this break out pretty well.

But we’re in recession. The economy isn’t doing so good, even though it will take months for the government to figure this out. So, don’t count on much in an income tax break.

Want to play another game? Try figuring out how much a trillion is. It’s a thousand billion. Count: one billion, two billion, three billion, on and on to a thousand. Ten stacks of a hundred billion dollars each.

Make each of these stacks out of $100 bills and each would be 3,300 feet high. 330 stories or three times the height of Sears Tower. Put ten beacons on top to warn airplanes.

Want to try the National Debt? It goes out into space on it's way to the moon. And the government talks about paying this down with your retirement and health care money. How does that grab you?