Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Well the Senate passed their fatuous "Stimulus" package last night which will stimulate very little if anything as far as the American economy is concerned however, it did stimulate me to point out a few things about it.

Remember how Obama crisscrossed the country during the election cycle visiting all "57" states according to him? Seems he confused his civics lessons with a bottle of Heinz ketchup and their 57 varieties. But hey, if you find yourself without a teleprompter, perhaps you repeat the last ideas you read.

Anyway, one of his more common stump themes, apart that is from the banalities about "Change", was his promise to cut taxes for everyone who made less than $200,000 per year. Actually, the specific amount varied depending on which of the 57 varieties he was in at the time but $200K was the most common. Well guess what emerged in last night's package? Now the magic number is down to $75K and those lucky taxpayers will get the princely sum of $13 per week from June 2009 until January 2010 when it is reduced to $8 per week.

I recall Michelle Obama on the stump as well discussing the stimulus pushed through by President Bush. Her punch line was that $600 wouldn't even buy a decent pair of ear rings. Now though, it seems that $8 per week will pay for all kinds of goodies even the First Lady's ear rings. It seems that the Obamas' mathematics is matched only by their civics knowledge.

Now according to analysis done by both the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Heritage Foundation, the actual cost over the years to come of yesterday's "effort" is more than 3 trillion dollars when you factor in such detail as accrued interest.

That, in itself, begs a question which is what does a trillion dollars look like? Well, if you remember your high school mathematics you know it's 10 raised to the 12th power but here's a couple of ways for mere mortals like me to envision it.

Suppose you are sitting at a table which is piled high with $1 bills and you start counting them at the rate of one per second. How long does it take to get to a trillion dollars? Because I'm a compassionate conservative, I'll spare you the effort of doing the math. More than 31,700 years is the answer and I'll leave you to multiply it by 3 to reach the CBO's number.

Or, try this as well or instead. Add up the cost of the Revolutionary War, the war of 1812, our Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Iraq, and Afghanistan and the total is less than 1 trillion dollars.

Feel better now, do you? Or, are you just a tad queasy?

So, just what's in this "package" that will absolutely do nothing to "stimulate" our economy? Well we already talked about the much vaunted tax cut for whatever that's worth but, hey, looky, here is a few million dollars to improve benefits for Filipino veterans of World War II. A laudable cause I'm sure but just how will that create one new job in Muskegon, Michigan?

Also, in this deal, are billions of dollars to support ACORN and other community activist groups. You know, the ones who have been shown to be guilty of massive voter registration fraud in the runup to 2008. Why, wasn't Obama a "Community Organizer" and didn't he represent ACORN at some point in his dubious and undistinguished legal career?

Here comes the Kool-Aid brigade again. "That's not true and if it is, it's pure coincidence, and if it's coincidental, it can't be true". Yada! Yada! Yada!

But, let's not have partisan politics. It's time "to reach out across the aisle!"

That's the new dogma from the left but I remember a different world and not from too far back; about 4 or 5 years I think. At that point, President Bush was in the White House and the GOP was in a majority on the Hill. All the left did, both in Washington and on the "drive-by media", was to attack, attack, attack. Because in those days, it was the duty of a "loyal Opposition" to expose the failures and the shortcomings of the Administration but now, because it's Obama, it's different? We, on the right have an implied obligation to remain silent? Well, not this commentator and not the American people for much longer.