Sunday, July 31, 2011

Obtuse Mathematics

Most Americans don't consider themselves stupid, but a person has to wonder anyway. If you've read the most recent reports about a potential deal to end the debt ceiling standoff, it appears obvious that our elected leaders and the mainstream media think that the majority of the public is slow and dimwitted. Both most likely are correct!

Why do I write such nasty things? Consider the following from CNN.
The framework of a tentative deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling calls for up to $2.8 trillion in total deficit reduction over the next decade, two sources familiar with the negotiations told CNN late Saturday night.

The agreement, still being negotiated by the White House and bipartisan congressional leaders, would allow the debt ceiling to be raised by enough to last at least through the end of 2012.
This deal supposedly is a compromise between the Democrats and Republicans. The Republican Plan on the table (Boehner's plan) calls for approximately $2.7 trillion in cuts. The Democratic Plan on the table (Reid's plan) calls for approximately $2.4 trillion in cuts.

Consequently, if the new proposal being worked on was a genuine compromise, one would expect that the final figure would fall somewhere between $2.4 trillion and $2.7 trillion. But we're told that the compromise position is $2.8 trillion which happens to be MORE than either proposal on the table!!

The saddest part is that most Americans won't recognize this obvious discrepancy.

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