Voice of the People - February 22, 2009

Exactly how much is a trillion?

With our illustrious trio of President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid (along with the majority of the other congressional intelligentsia) preparing to print and spend over $1 trillion, I had to stop and ask myself, just how much is 1 trillion?

For those educated in our public schools 1 trillion is 1 followed by 12 zeros.

If you laid 1trillion dollar bills end to end, they would reach around the earth nearly 4,000 times. They would reach the moon and back almost 200 times.

If you traveled 1 trillion miles, you could circumnavigate the globe more than 40 million times or make over 2 million round trips to the moon.

Assuming the age of the Earth is 4.6 billion years, 1 trillion years is more than 200 times longer than the age of our planet.

If you spent $1 per second, 24 hours per day, seven days per week it would take you 31,688 years to spend the money. In the process, you would be spending over $11.5 million per day.

Assuming the population of the U.S. is 306 million, the government could give $3,267 to every living person in the nation or $5,534 per person for those aged 20 to 64.

Using 1 trillion cubic yards of concrete, we could build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico that would be 1,969 miles long, 10 feet thick and 50 feet tall.

Carson Taylor

Rock Hill

City approves wasteful spending

In this time of economic downturn, the city of Rock Hill considered wasting $50,000 for a piece of art that will never be seen by anyone other than the employees of the water plant. The mayor and his cronies are wasting the taxpayers' dollars every time they meet.

Three questions for the mayor and city council:

1: How much money has been wasted on the White house? A nice sign used to be out front, wanting $2 million in donations. Now the sign is gone and the front of the house looks great while the sides and back look to be condemned.

2. How much money was wasted on the bric, mortar and fountain on the corner of Charlotte and White streets? I enjoyed stopping to get a cup of coffee at the old Handy Pantry and noticed the graffiti nicely sprayed on the brick and mortar a week after the completion. At least someone found a good use for the waste. Also how much did the fountain cost that worked for about three days before it became a cast iron pot that will surely rust now?

3. How much did the wavy sidewalks in front of the Galleria cost the people of Rock Hill? Maybe instead of spending hundreds of thousands on side walks that are useless, they could have voted to spend money to actually fix the traffic problems out at the mall. Two more lanes would have helped the people of Rock Hill better than sidewalks that will never be used and destroyed in a few years when the mayor and council actually fix the roads.

It is amazing how Jim Reno and Kevin Sutton are the villains because they choose to question how the city spends taxpayers' dollars.

Bill Yearlus

Rock Hill

Many support President Obama

This letter is in response to Steve Lewis. I understand that he doesn't understand why President Obama getting all this hype. But it's simple. First, many Americans don't feel the way Steve Lewis does. It seems like Americans feel President Obama can lead this country.

Lee Moore

Rock Hill

Heckling player was uncalled for

While attending a recent high school basketball game at Clover vs. York, which turned out to be a very physical ballgame, no thanks to the refs, I noticed something at the end of the ballgame on the student section side of the bleachers. A York player had to inbound the ball from the student side, and the students were within a foot, slinging their arms and using some pretty foul language at this young man.

The refs were aware, and it didn't seem to matter to them. I really lost some respect for Clover High School, which I have seen in the past and which has always acted with very good sportsmanship. My hat goes off to this young man who was called every name in the book, and he didn't even turn and say one word.

I realize that home team and home field advantage mean a lot, but not at the expense of a young player being ridiculed in this manner. The players from both teams were as gracious to each other in this very physical game.

Thanks for the coaches at Clover and York for teaching their players that sportsmanship is a true blessing when doing battle as these two teams did.

Roger Gilfillan

York

This story was originally published February 22, 2009 at 12:38 AM with the headline "Voice of the People - February 22, 2009."