January 09, 2014
The Washington Post dives into the really big numbers game today telling readers about a compromise between Democrats and Republicans in Congress that will lead to $9 billion in cuts to the food stamp program over the next decade. If you’re expecting a big tax cut from eliminating this spending on food stamps, you might want to wait a bit before spending the windfall.
If we go CEPR’s nifty responsible budget reporting calculator we find that this cut comes to 0.019 percent of federal spending over this period. In other words, the cuts may mean a lot to the people affected. They don’t mean much to the overall budget. (But hey, Washington Post readers knew that, right?)
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