The U.S. National Debt - Measured in Pennies ...

According to the October 5, 2008 Newsprism article "National Debt Surpasses $10,000,000,000,000.00—Charlton Heston Reacts:

Lily Tomlin famously said, “No matter how cynical you get, you can’t keep up.”

By at least one measure—the National Debt Clock in downtown New York City (video)—our collective debt has just surpassed $10 trillion. In fact, a fourteenth digit must be added to the Clock to keep up with the (with our) debt.

Here’s a nice way to visualize $10 trillion:
One Quadrillion Pennies
Image copyright 2001, kokogiak media

$10 trillion dollars equals one quadrillion pennies, which would fill a cube roughly half a mile tall, deep and wide…dwarfing the Washington Monument and the Sears Tower.

Those responsible for this burden, including Democrats and Republicans in both the Executive and Legislative Branches over the last three decades, have put our national security at risk with their out-of-control spending. Our economic supremacy is at risk as the global financial system lurches into a paradigm shift at a time when we’re trillions of dollars in debt to our main economic competitor, China, and to our economic overlords in the Middle East.

As Charlton Heston said at the end of “Planet of the Apes”, kneeling before the remains of the Statue of Liberty, “Damn you…God damn you all to Hell.”

And that’s putting it mildly.