(Quoted from Internet)
The short answer: a lot. The long answer: depends on how you look at it.
NASA's budget in fiscal year 2009: $17.6 billion, or 2.5% of the bailout sum.
The National Science Foundation's annual budget (NSF): $6.06 billion to support research and education on astronomy, chemistry, materials science, computing, engineering, earth sciences, nanoscience and physics (among others) at more than 1,900 universities and institutions across the United States.
From 2003 through the end of fiscal year 2009, Congress has appropriated $606 billion for military operations and other activities associated with the war in Iraq. The entire military budget for fiscal 2008 is $481.4 billion.
Social Security is a $608 billion annual program.
Based on the U.S. Census Bureau's estimate of the current population of about 305 million people, each person would have to pay $2,300 to fund the $700,000,000,000. If each American (including children) paid a dollar a day, it would take more than six years to pay the money in full. One might argue, however, that this $700 billion would be a modest splash in the bucket of national debt, which already stands at well over $9 trillion (which means you already owe $31,642 each).
Looking at the Forbes 400 richest list recently published, it would take most of what these 400 people collectively have - a combined net worth of $1.57 trillion - to dig out of this mess.
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