The intersection between politics and language is a fascinating place. Politicians are talkers, not doers, and much of their effort goes toward finding just the right word, the appropriate tone, the proper emphasis. But for the moment, let's focus on just three words that fall so trippingly from the tongue: million, billion, and trillion.
Consider this, if you will:
--A million seconds ago, 11 and a half days, millions of Spaniards were taking to the streets, voting out a government and marching for peace.
--A billion seconds ago, 32 years, was 1972, and I was back in college after serving in the Army. Nixon was coasting to an easy re-election, and disco was just around the corner.
--A trillion seconds ago, about 32,000 years, Neanderthals were still contending with homo sapiens for top spot among primates.
A letter here, two letters there, and poof! you're off to another realm entirely, orders of magnitude away from where you started.
Three words so stunningly similar represent three mathematical values so vastly different. Look at the consequences of this similarity: the headlines read "$87 billion for Iraq" and "$2.4 trillion record deficit" and "Charged CEO paid $100 million" but who in the body politic really comprehends the differences in scale? $87 billion is less than $300 for every American man, woman, and child, about the price of a dishwasher. $2.4 trillion is about $8,000 each, or the cost of decent used car.
I'd wager that the average voter cannot understand dollar amounts more than double or triple their own annual salaries. The words "thousand" and "million" sound different, and trigger different mental reactions. A thousand dollars you can hold in your hand, use it for a nice vacation, but a million bucks? Ah, there you're off in the realm of yachts and mansions, and millions and billions and trillions are all thrown together. The language fails us, it hides rather reveals different meanings, and our friends the politicians are quite willing to let the incomprehension persist.
John Allen Paulos wrote wittily and pointedly about Americans' innumeracy. We prize literacy, yet there's no shame attached when someone laughs about "not being good with numbers." I was shocked to find out how few of my coworkers were unclear about how to calculate percentage. And here we have three words where language and innumeracy have combined to make the most important part of public policy - the fiscal nuts and bolts of government, raising and spending money - beyond the mental reach of most voters.
Henry Adams once said that the two aspects of the world that have had the most profound effect on our lives were the inclination on the planet on its axis and the differentiation of the sexes. I don't pretend that this -illion problem is of the same importance, but it does serve as a reminder how seemingly minor things have, in fact, such profound and far-reaching effects.