$16 billion is a lot of money to call minuscule

Dave Newton, Las Vegas

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.

Bob Franken, in his column in Sunday’s Las Vegas Sun on banning earmarks, writes that “by federal spending standards, the amounts are minuscule, slightly under $16 billion, which is less than one half of 1 percent of the federal budget and about 1 percent of the deficit.”

How out of touch with the real world does someone have to be to think that $16 billion is minuscule?

Or let’s look at it in another way: How many people’s taxes (on average) does $16 billion represent? Maybe they’d like the right to use their money in the way they feel is best, as opposed to turning it over to the government so that some “public servant” (LOL) gets the right to brag to constituents that he or she brought home the bacon.

If you save $16 billion here and $16 billion there, pretty soon you’d be talking about some real money.