Sunday, February 15, 2009

Budget Comparison

The church budget was up for discussion today. It's a little north of $100,000. According to our by-laws, we have to get information to the congregation well in advance so that all of us will know what we are talking about when we meet.

Contrast this to the $800,000,000,000 Congress just spent with about a day to read the proposal - and that's extra spending, not even the budget proper. I guess Obama forgot that he promised at least 48 hours for each spending bill, even much smaller ones. Maybe "forgot" isn't the word I'm looking for.

Watership Down connection. Rabbits can count up to four (I actually doubt they can count to two - literary license); after that, it's just "many." So hrair can be used for both five or a thousand. The name "Fiver," or the list of rabbit enemies "The Thousand." Human beings can go higher with numbers and retain some meaning, but I think the principle still holds. Beyond a certain number, relatively low when talking about government money, it's all just "lots." three million equals three billion equals three trillion. Which is why we have not marched on Washington to put violent hands on our representatives.

2 comments:

Retriever said...

Nice and appropriate reference. Another one I think of is how long I take researching the grocery flyers and searching the aisles as I shop to save money (say an hour to save $40, so obviously well worth it) on the family groceries, versus the amounts our government decides to spend in minutes.

Ben Wyman said...

It's remarkable how skeevy the very first major piece of legislation is under this administration - isn't this supposed to be the honeymoon period, where we still think our new President can do no wrong?