Turn this to the gospel...

Further to last night, turn this article to the gospel.

US senators battling a nearly one trillion US dollar economic stimulus package are striving to find vivid ways to explain just how big that one with 12 zeroes after it really is.

On Tuesday, Republican Senator John Thune said you could ring the equator 38.9 times with $US100 bills stretched side-by-side - and showed a picture of Earth encircled in greenbacks to underline his point.

"One trillion dollars is a terrible thing to waste," he said. "We shouldn't spend money we don't have on things we don't need."

A day earlier, Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell also grappled with ways to illustrate how big the $US888 billion stimulus plan - which could easily expand before a final vote - really is.

"Just to put a trillion dollars in context, if you started spending the day that Jesus was born and you spend a million dollars every single day, you still wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars. This is a lot of money," he said.