$700 billion, pondering the possibilities

Brother, can you spare a billion? More like $700 billion, to be precise.

With Washington trying to finagle a $700 billion rescue for the nation's financial system, the federal money sought by other projects is starting to look like chump change.

You could buy yourself a war with that kind of money -- the U.S. has spent $648 billion on Iraq war operations so far.

You could match Franklin Roosevelt on his New Deal and raise him billions more.

Even in a town where billions come and go without anyone blinking, the money that could go into the Wall Street rescue is eye-popping. The House on Monday voted down a proposed $700 billion bailout package, but congressional leaders said they were committed to trying again.

What else could the government do with a $700 billion blank check? There are, well, billions of possibilities.

It could ensure universal health care coverage for six years, for example, or upgrade the country's most deficient bridges four times over. All the work to upgrade coastal levees that's been done since Hurricane Katrina? It's a mere drop in the proverbial $700 billion bucket -- $7 billion, or just 1 percent.

You could build 1,750 bridges to nowhere.

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