Government Math

Manipulation of numbers by US politicians has been with us for years. It is sometimes called “Smoke and mirrors”. It is best described by the old saw, “Numbers don’t lie but liars can use numbers”.

Currently a “new government math” is being applied creatively by our elected officials and being propagated by the media.

The frequent reports on the number people applying for first time unemployment benefits is an example. The report will state that 300, 000 applied and that was less than the 350, 000 expected. This is reported as a good thing.

My question: When the last person working is layed off and the number of people applying goes to 1, and then 0, will the Media be ecstatic?

A second question: If at the same time the number applying for benefits goes to 300, 000 and the government reports that 200, 000 new jobs were created in the same period, is this progress? Didn’t the number of unemployed increase by 100,000? That can’t be good!

Second example; the selected use of percentage and dollar amounts. During the last State of the Union address the President stated that Warren Buffett’s tax rate was 15%, a smaller rate than his secretary. He didn’t say that Buffet’s rate was a Capital Gains Tax on his investments and the Secretaries was the normal Income Tax rate for her income. This was very deceptive.  Why not compare apples to apples, explain the difference in rates, and then state the taxes paid in dollars?

Our Federal Reps and senators also selectively do the same thing,.

During Senate hearings blasting big companies for making huge profits the Senators were stating profit in dollars and not as a percentage of sales. During the last Gas price increase hearings Senator Dianne Feinstein excoriated a petroleum industry CEO for making obscene profits, telling him he should be sharing profits with the poor. The CEO advised that their profit was 4%. The Senator accused him of playing the victim card. The CEO replied that his company was making four cents on every dollar of gas sales and the government was collecting and distributing 14 cents for every dollar of his company’s sales. The Senator was not happy.

I’m concerned that our schools are so concerned with teaching social science and promoting self esteem that they are not teaching the “Three R’s”. If students don’t learn how to think and analyze they will be ill informed sheep.