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For those who live in apartments, at a rental rate of $1,000 a month, $17.2 billion could provide housing for over 1.4 million residents for one year.

For the investment minded, at 5% per annum, the earnings on 17.2 billion dollars would be $860 million a year. Looking at it from the viewpoint of seniors who collect Social Security, with the average retiree receiving about $1,000 a month, the investment income could permanently provide annual retirement payments to almost 72,000 people. Isn't that how Social Security should work, instead of as a form of "Ponzi scheme," which would be illegal if it were not the government doing it?

Now we are hearing about trillion-dollar budgets, which makes the scope of our federal finances even more difficult to comprehend. The bigger the numbers, the easier it becomes to waste or hide large expenditures in the various budgets.

Are we getting our money's worth from government, or is too much of it being wasted? Like the man said, "A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

The foregoing illustrations clearly demonstrate the misplaced priorities of our legislators. I believe financial impact reports should be required for all major appropriations bills.

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NOTE: Read more of Harris Sherline's commentaries on his blog at "opinionfest.com."

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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