How much money?

I got up early this morning and went to the records of the U.S. federal budget. It took the United States of America from 1789 to 1960 to spend the amount of money in this one, a package in the ballpark of $2-2.5 trillion. In fact, it took the U.S. government 178 years, from our ...

I got up early this morning and went to the records of the U.S. federal budget. It took the United States of America from 1789 to 1960 to spend the amount of money in this one, a package in the ballpark of $2-2.5 trillion.

I got up early this morning and went to the records of the U.S. federal budget. It took the United States of America from 1789 to 1960 to spend the amount of money in this one, a package in the ballpark of $2-2.5 trillion.

In fact, it took the U.S. government 178 years, from our founding until 1967, to spend the amount of money contained in the two spending proposals put forward during the first three weeks of the Obama administration.

This post has been updated.

David Rothkopf is visiting professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is The Great Questions of Tomorrow. He has been a longtime contributor to Foreign Policy and was CEO and editor of the FP Group from 2012 to May 2017. Twitter: @djrothkopf

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