For those whining about the cost of the "Build Back Better" package now working its way throught the hand-w(R)inging process in the Congress, herewith a little help for the arithmetically challenged.

One trillion is 1 followed by 12 zeroes. Expended over ten years, the cost to each of the 180 million US taxpayers is about $1.52 per day ($1 tn ÷ 10 ÷ 180 mm ÷ 365 = ~$1.52).

The cost of doing nothing is not zero, BTW. It is equal to the cost of all the other ways society might have to cope with the results of doing nothing, e.g., coping with all the angry, uneducated, homeless persons wandering the nation's streets a few years hence. So if you're OK with that, go ahead and support inaction.

But first, consider the range of proposals just among Democrats. The Biden group suggests $3.5 tn, while the Manchin "group" suggests $1.5 tn, a difference of $2 tn.

Applying the same formula as above, one arrives at a difference between the packages of $3.04 per day for the average taxpayer. That's around $1,111 per year or $92.59 per month as "your" cost of providing the package of services and facilities (much of the money would be spent on improving infrastructure associated with public services, such as modernization of day care centers for chldren and seniors, etc.).

Either way seems cheap to me if it means that fewer children go hungry and fewer mothers have to scrounge for scraps to feed them. There is essentially nothing I truly need that can be bought for $3.04 anyway.

And if you think you are above the fray, remember that so did all those homeowners whose dwellings were blown or washed away in this summer's storms. Each of us is but one "grace of God" moment away from being a recipient instead of a donor. How will you want the nation to respond when that needy person on the street is you?