$700 Billion Is A Lot of Money

During the "Weekend Update" segment of "Saturday Night Live" this past weekend, anchorman Seth Meyers reported that "$700 billion is so much money that I can't even but it into perspective as to how much money it is," or something like that.

The point is, it is a lot of money. Of course, nobody knows if that is the actual amount this bailout program will cost the American taxpayer - or even how the American government will come up with the scratch. But it is a nice round number and Americans love round numbers so everybody is running with it.

I could not even begin any kind of authoritative discussion regarding the merits of this bailout program in this space. I do know, however, that the country in general and Long Island in particular needs to move on, and quickly. The sooner we can be in a position to say, "Well, if you think this is bad, you should have been there in 2008!" the better off we all will be.

Unfortunately, just as there is no rewind button in life there is no fast-forward control either. We must do what we can with what we have, even as we read about New York State controller Thomas DiNapoli ruling last week that workers must be on the job six hours a day in order to be considered a full-time employee of the State. Six hours! Most LIBI members work six hours before they take lunch. Then, in this morning's Newsday, several local municipalities revealed that they are trimming their budgets by not filling job vacancies caused by retirement. If those jobs do not need to be filled, then how important were they in the first place? Why wait for the people to retire? If the position is unnecessary, then why not eliminate the positions now?

That won't happen, of course, because governments operate with Monopoly money. Unfortunately, landing on Free Parking with $700 billion is not an option. We'll just have to pass "Go" 3,500,000 times before we can pay off the debt.