Celebrate Catholic Schools Week at St. Joan of Arc Parish!

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few
people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal
spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:
U.S. income: $ 2,170,000,000,000 That's two trillion, one hundred and
seventy billion
Federal budget: $ 3,820,000,000,000 That's three billion, eight hundred
and twenty billion
New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000 That's one trillion, six hundred and
fifty billion
National debt: $ 14,271,000,000,000 That's fourteen trillion, two hundred
and seventy one billion
Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms to which we can relate.Let's
remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget
for the fictitious Jones family.
Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Amount cut from the budget: $385
Now after years of this, the Jones family has $142,710 of debt on its credit card
(which is the equivalent of the national debt).

You would think the Jones family would recognize and address this situation, but it
does not. Neither does Congress.