Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

P.J. O'Rourke

From the Big Picture - An excellent graphic on government spending

It is exceedingly difficult to convey exactly how much we are spending on all
these bailouts. Whenever I start talking trillions (versus mere billions), I get
puzzled looks from people. Humans have a hard time conceptualizing any number
that large. I wanted a graphic way to clearly show how astonishingly ginormous
the amounts involved were.

It is nothing short of astonishing.

It includes the total outlay for all the bailouts to date. In just about
one short year (March 2008 - March 2009), the bailouts managed to spend far in
excess of nearly every major one time expenditure of the USA, including
WW1&2 (omitted from graphic), the moon shot, the New Deal, total NASA
budgets (omitted from graphic), Iraq, Viet Nam and Korean wars — COMBINED.

206 years versus 12 months. Total cost: ~$15 trillion and counting . . .

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/