That’s more than half of the money appropriated for the program. Yes, some folks will know that the $40 billion refers to a cut over 10 years. But is there some reason that the NYT can’t provide such information in the article and not risk misleading a large share of its readers.

That comes to roughly 5 percent of the cost of the program. To give readers a bit more context, the NYT could have used CEPR’s nifty Responsible Budget Calculator to inform readers that the cut amounts to 0.09 percent of projected federal spending over this period. In short, this cut may be a big deal to the people affected, it means little in terms of the deficit or anyone’s tax bill.

The NYT is supposed to be committed to putting numbers like this in a context that makes them understandable to readers. Would anyone at the NYT really want to claim this piece expressed the proposed cuts in a way that made them understandable to most of their readers?