Friday, January 13, 2006
From the President's speech in Bay St.Louis yesterday:
Signing all the legislation I've signed, the federal government has committed $85 billion so far to helping folks and to help rebuild the Gulf Coast of -- (applause.) Of that $85 billion, about $25 billion has been spent. So $85 billion is available, $25 billion of it is already in the pipeline -- that's $60 billion more coming your way.
Leaving aside the issue of how much of the money is actually going to "helping folks," how did the President arrive at the $85B figure. Actually, when I heard the speech, I thought that he said $86B and immediately thought that I understood the weird combination of dishonesty and bad math that led to that figure. First there was $62B, then there was another $29B, but, of course, it ended up that only $5B of the $29B was new appropriations. So, I figured that he dishonestly added the $29B to the $62B and got $91B (something that I believe every local/regional blogger has warned could happen). Now if he somehow subtracted the $5B that actually could have (somewhat) honestly been added to the $62B, it would have led to a figure of $86B. I can't figure out the $85B figure. Am I missing something?
Signing all the legislation I've signed, the federal government has committed $85 billion so far to helping folks and to help rebuild the Gulf Coast of -- (applause.) Of that $85 billion, about $25 billion has been spent. So $85 billion is available, $25 billion of it is already in the pipeline -- that's $60 billion more coming your way.
Leaving aside the issue of how much of the money is actually going to "helping folks," how did the President arrive at the $85B figure. Actually, when I heard the speech, I thought that he said $86B and immediately thought that I understood the weird combination of dishonesty and bad math that led to that figure. First there was $62B, then there was another $29B, but, of course, it ended up that only $5B of the $29B was new appropriations. So, I figured that he dishonestly added the $29B to the $62B and got $91B (something that I believe every local/regional blogger has warned could happen). Now if he somehow subtracted the $5B that actually could have (somewhat) honestly been added to the $62B, it would have led to a figure of $86B. I can't figure out the $85B figure. Am I missing something?
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Your numbers look correct to me. The president ain't so good with nummers. Heck, everybody knows he wears socks with no toes so he can quickly count higher than 10.
Peace,
Tim
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Peace,
Tim
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