Wednesday, December 21, 2022

The 2022 Omnibus Bill- Just how much is $1.7 trillion dollars?


It's December 21, 2022.  Congress is trying to pass the $1.7 trillion Omnibus bill before leaving for their holiday vacation.  Above, David goes into a few of the things in the bill, how it will cause more inflation, and thoughts about it. Obviously, he doesn't really read the whole thing.  

$1,700,000,000,000
That's the number.

How much is $1.7 trillion?  Here's one way to try and put it in perspective, that I just figured out.  For $17.4 billion, the federal government could give every single one of the 580,000 homeless people in the U.S., $2,500 a month, to pay for housing, for a whole year.  $2,500 a month should be enough to rent some place to live, for one person, in pretty much any part of the country, even here in Los Angeles area.  That $17.4 billion would be 1.02% of the Omnibus bill, housing every single homeless person for a year, in a room or apartment they pick, and leaving almost 99% of the money for other purposes.  

$1.7 trillion is the same as giving $8,100 to every one of the 209 million adults in the U.S.  

I know... booooooooring!  

How' bout this?  The $1.7 trillion in the Omnibus bill could by a new, 2022, Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, for every single one of the 19 million men, women, and children in the entire state of New York. 


19 million all American mucle cars in one state.  Just a way to put this amount of money into perspective.  In 2018, 66,717 Dodge Challengers were sold, the peak year of sales for that model. 

To be clear, I'm not saying the Omnibus Bill should or shouldn't be passed.  I'm sure there's a lot in there that needs to be spent, and I'm also sure there's a whole bunch of "pork barrel" spending that doesn't really need to be spent.  My point in this post is just to try and put the huge amount, of $1.7 trillion U.S. dollars, into a frame of reference, so we get some idea just how much money that is.  Yes, it will help cause more inflation down the road, 12 to 18 months, on average, after the chunks of money are spent.  It won't increase inflation in the next few months, though.  It takes a while for large blocks of new money to work into the everyday economy, causing inflation. 

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