The Hill News

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) served up a new way to visualize the enormity of the U.S. debt on Monday, pointing out that the nation's financial obligations can be sliced into 987 billion medium pizza pies.

In a release to reporters, Flake pointed to a report that Prince Harry, in Arizona for military training, visited an pizzeria on Friday called "Little Italia," where he enjoyed a pepperoni, sausage and bacon pizza at a price of $14.99.

Divided up into pizzas with that price tag, the nation's $14.8 trillion debt would yield almost 1 trillion pies, Flake said.

"Even by upper-crust standards, like Prince Harry’s, that’s a lot of dough," he said.

The pizzeria Prince Harry visited is in Gila Bend, Ariz., which sits in the district represented by Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva â€" a Democrat.

Flake, who was first elected to the House in 2000, is running for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in 2012.