How to spend $317 Billion

Found this interesting statistic this afternoon:

"The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the real cost of the federal government guaranteeing the business of failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is $317 billion -- not the $130 billion normally claimed by the administration. In a report delivered to the House Budget Committee on June 2, the CBO said a “fair value” accounting of guaranteeing the two defunct mortgage companies – known as Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) – was more than twice as high as the Office of Management and Budget had accounted for." -- CBN.com

So it got me thinking..  what ways could the govt have spent that $317 billion instead..

--  Government could have directly hired over 2.1 million people for 3 years based on $50k salary  (or 6.3 million people hired at $50k for 1 year)

--  A stimulus check to the economic bottom 100 million adults of $3,170.00

--  Each US state could have received $6.34 Billion dollars to help balance their budgets and keep teachers, police officers, fire fighters, etc.. employed

--  Provide grants of $40,000 to 7.92 Million entrepreneurs to start up businesses that likely wouldn't have started up without the financial assistance.
         **  If each person created a business and hired just 1 employee, that's statistically, a Total Increase in the US workforce of about 16 Million people.  There are currently 12million unemployed Americans, so this one government action would reduce unemployment to literally Zero.


Its funny isn't it.. your taxpayer dollars are Never meant to directly benefit you.