NEW YORK ( CNN ) -- In that strange intersection of economics and politics , there is a new fashion : Trillion is the new billion . One trillion $ 1 bills stacked one on top of the other would reach nearly 68,000 miles into the sky . A billion is a thousand million , and a trillion is a thousand billion . To provide some perspective on just how big a trillion dollars is , think about it like this : A trillion dollars is the number 1 followed by 12 zeroes . Or you can think of it this way : One trillion $ 1 bills stacked one on top of the other would reach nearly 68,000 miles ( about 109,400 kilometers ) into the sky , or about a third of the way from the Earth to the moon . Some Republicans are hardly over the moon about the growing size of the proposed economic stimulus plan . Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said this week that Americans have become desensitized to just how much money that is . `` To put a trillion dollars in context , if you spend a million dollars every day since Jesus was born , you still would n't have spent a trillion , '' McConnell said . CNN checked McConnell 's numbers with noted Temple University math professor and author John Allen Paulos . `` A million dollars a day for 2,000 years is only three-quarters of a trillion dollars . It 's a big number no matter how you slice it , '' Paulos said . Here 's another way to look at it . `` A million seconds is about 11½ days . A billion seconds is about 32 years , and a trillion seconds is 32,000 years , '' Paulos said . `` People tend to lump them together , perhaps because they rhyme , but if you think of it in terms of a jail sentence , do you want to go to jail for 11½ days or 32 years or maybe 32,000 years ? So , they 're vastly different , and people generally do n't really have a real visceral grasp of the differences among them . '' Everyone is tossing around the words million , billion and trillion . With the national debt now topping $ 10 trillion , following a $ 700 billion bank rescue and proposed $ 800 billion-plus stimulus package , have we become numb to the numbers ? How much is a trillion ? » . `` 'Number ' itself can be parsed 'number ' or 'numb-er . ' And maybe in this case , the latter is a better pronunciation , '' Paulos said . `` I think to some extent , we have ... evolved in a context where such big numbers were completely foreign . '' Perhaps a better way to get a `` grasp of the numbers , '' Paulos said , is to use them to describe the budgets of government programs . `` The [ Environmental Protection Agency 's ] , for example , annual budget is about $ 7.5 billion . So , a trillion dollars would fund the EPA in present dollars for 130 years -- more than a century . Or the National Science Foundation or National Cancer Institute have budgets of $ 5 [ billion ] or $ 6 billion . You could fund those for almost 200 years , '' he said . Times have certainly changed . Back in 1993 , President Bill Clinton wanted a $ 30 billion jobs and investment package . He did n't get it . Just last year , President George W. Bush signed an emergency economic stimulus of $ 168 billion -- - a tally that seems paltry compared with the amount requested today . The economic problem , many say , demands huge spending . Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has called it `` the mother of all crises . '' The numbers are big , but so is the United States economy . The gross domestic product , which measures the total value of goods and services produced in a country , is about $ 14 trillion . Still , many wonder if we can afford it . `` So we do have a big economy that may not be as vibrant as it was , but it is still a powerful economic engine . Knock on wood , we 'll see what happens , '' said Paulos . Last week , the House passed an $ 819 billion emergency stimulus , and the Senate version is approaching $ 900 billion . In the end , whatever lawmakers hash out probably wo n't reach $ 1 trillion . But consider this : If all of the financial market interventions , loans , guarantees , bailouts and rescues are approved , they will total more than $ 7 trillion .
One billion is equal to 1,000 million ; One trillion is equal to 1,000 billion . One trillion stacked dollars would reach nearly 60,000 miles , one-third way to moon . Comment: All financial market interventions , loans , bailouts total more than $ 7 trillion .