Or $23.7 trillion, to be more precise. But really, what’s another $700 billion matter when you’re already measuring expenditures in tens of trillions of dollars? As if it really needed to be said, we’re all soooo screwed.

“The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23.7 trillion,” says Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in a new report obtained Monday by ABC News on the government’s efforts to fix the financial system.

Yes, $23.7 trillion.

“The potential financial commitment the American taxpayers could be responsible for is of a size and scope that isn’t even imaginable,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “If you spent a million dollars a day going back to the birth of Christ, that wouldn’t even come close to just $1 trillion — $23.7 trillion is a staggering figure.”

Granted, Barofsky is not saying that the government will definitely spend that much money. He is saying that potentially, it could.

At present, the government has about 50 different programs to fight the current recession, including programs to bail out ailing banks and automakers, boost lending and beat back the housing crisis. Barofsky’s estimate means that if each federal agency spends the maximum potential amount involved in these 50 different initiatives — if the Federal Reserve ends up spending $6.8 trillion on its programs. If the Treasury Department spends $4.4 trillion, if the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation spends $2.3 trillion, and so on — then the numbers add up to a total of $23.7 trillion.

An outcome that only a powerful big government liberal committed to taking over your life and driving out private industry could love. For the rest of us, you know people who actually have to pay taxes, it’s a situation the likes of which previous generations couldn’t even imagine in their wildest nightmares.

It should be noted that Barofsky, in his role as a non-partisan inspector general, is mentioning all of this because he wants Congress to impose more oversight in regards to how the Treasury Department is spending the American people’s money. He rightly argues that if the government could spend $700 billion of TARP funds without knowing where it all went, what would stop it from doing the same with the potential $23 trillion it could end up spending?

And to think $400 hammers used to sound outrageous…