November 19, 2014
Okay folks, how big a deal is $608 billion over the next ten years to the federal government? Yeah, that comes to 1.3 percent of the $48.5 trillion that we were projected to spend over this period. You all knew that, right?
Yes, the NYT is again doing the meaningless budget numbers routine, telling us that plans by House Republicans to extend a set of tax breaks over the next decade would cost $608 billion in lost revenue. A Senate plan to cover 2015 and 2014 would cost $84.1 billion (roughly 2.4 percent of spending). Of course none of its readers has any idea of the significance of these numbers, and they know it. But hey, who ever said news reporting has anything to do with informing the public?
As Jonathan Gruber says, the public is stupid.
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