February 19, 2015
The NYT completely abandoned its commitment to put numbers in context in an article on the budget cuts proposed by Illinois’ new governor, Bruce Rauner. The piece tells readers that the governor had proposed cuts of more than $6 billion. Since most NYT readers are not familiar with the size of Illinois’ budget, this is not providing very much information. In fact, the cuts (actually $6.7 billion) would be equal to approximately 17.5 percent of baseline spending (see page 2-23). It refers to a cut of $1.5 billion in state Medicaid spending. This is just under 20 percent of baseline spending on the program.
The piece notes a projected shortfall of $110 billion in the state’s pension plans. This is equal to approximately 0.8 percent of the state’s projected income over the pension’s 30-year planning period. The piece refers to a plan to cut pension benefits by $100 billion. This would imply cuts of more than $200,000 per active employee. (This calculation does not apply any discounting since it’s not clear if any discounting is applied to the $100 billion figure.)
Comments