Lies and Statistics

Benjamin Disraeli is responsible for the quote that Mark Twain popularized: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." This administration excels at all three, but the current con game that Obama perpetrated at his first ever cabinet meeting definitely ranks as the worst kind.

Obama trumpeted his plan to force his cabinet to find $100 million to cut from the budget as if $100 million meant anything. To put that number into context, here are some comparisons:

• $100 million is only 0.0029% of Obama's 2010 $3.5 trillion budget


• $100 million is only 0.013% of Obama's $700 billion Porkulus stimulus bill


• $100 million is only 0.77% of the $13 billion in pork in the omnibus spending plan

Put another way, let's say that I go out and buy a $100,000 stereo system. I bring it home and my wife says, "you paid what for that stereo?! How can we pay for it?!" And I (very calmly of course) respond, don't worry honey, I'll just return these $2.90 speaker cables. I bet that would reassure her, right?

But, hey, at least it's a start, right? Wrong! It's a con just as I stated above and here's why: psychologists tell us that people, in general, can't understand these huge numbers without some context. Beside that, we all instinctively know that $100 million is a lot of money, so the cuts seem pretty impressive. However, many don't recognize that $100 million is a drop in the bucket, compared to Obama's profligate spending. The administration is counting on the general public to miss that fact.

Even though they'll never admit it, the hundreds of Tea Parties held across the nation seem to have rattled the Obama administration. In response to the Tea Parties, the administration trotted out its press secretary, the hopeless Robert Gibbs, to crow about it's great accomplishment of cutting $100 million. However, in a rare showing of journalistic backbone, the press corp pointed out that the $100 million was nothing compared to current spending. It was even pointed out that just a week prior, the self-same press secretary had claimed that $8 billion in earmarks was nothing.

Let's hope that the general public will realize what the White House press corp recognized while Gibbs was trying to slip one by them: this government is spending us and our children into oblivion. We currently pay about $50 million per day on just the interest on our national debt (so the $100 million cut that Obama is so proud of will pay for about 2 days of interest, gee thanks). Our current dept is $11.2 trillion and Obama's spending is expected to add another $1 trillion to that debt in the year 2010 alone. Before long, the interest on our debt could be the largest item in the budget. This is debt that we will never be able to pay off without a huge amount of pain and suffering. Piddling $100 million "cuts" will never change that fact.