Some math

So I've been doing some math to figure out what our new President is really saying.

First, he said that his plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs. Or 4 million. Or 3 million. The number changes, but that isn't so important. Create or save? How do you count how many you saved? Easy, I'm figuring. If you didn't create them you must have saved them. So, if he didn't create a single new job, but there was no net loss, he accomplished his goal. A low standard, since he came to office on the heals of six million losses. So, if no one gets their job back, but none others are lost, he has accomplished the goal. Four million saved. Pretty slick.

Second, the Deficit. This is a really good one. He says he will cut the deficit he inherited in half. That's ripe. He claims what he inherited was $1.3 trillion. Let's pretend that's a real figure. Of that, $.75 trillion was the November stimulus package, and .15 trillion was the spring stimulus package, both one time payments that aren't "budget" items (which is the real issue - we budget more than we make). Take those out ($1.3 minus $.90), and the "real" deficit is $.4 trillion, or, $400 billion. So, by him saying he will cut the deficit in half (one half of $1.3 trillion is $.65 trillion, or, $650 billion)(he actually said it would be $533 billion), he is giving himself some real wiggle room. If the "real" budget deficit were cut in half, the $400 billion deficit would be cut to $200 billion. Instead, the President has proposed that he INCREASE the end-of-the-Bush-era budget deficit from $400 billion to $533 billion by the end of this first 4 years...a number he is touting as the LOWEST number of his administration. Whew.

Here's the thing. If he feels he needs those kind of numbers because the country is in a mess and he has to run up the bills to fix the mess, then why not tell us the truth, not mask it behind number-puzzles?

Did I write about the 60 pages of the 400 page spending part of the stimulus package that is devoted to MANDATORY FEDERAL COMPUTERIZED HEALTH RECORDS? How does that stimulate you? For me, more of the same.

So, it depends on what you mean by the word "transparency".