Poor math reporting

Yesterday, the Obama Administration announced that Cabinet level officials would identify $100 million in savings over the next 90 days. The lousy reporting job by the media reminded me of this xkcd comic which called for a little honesty in how numbers are reported.

According to the IRS, for fiscal year 2008, the government ended with a deficit of $454.8 billion dollars. Obama's proposed budget for 2010 has an estimated $1.2 trillion dollar deficit, which is an increase of $745.2 billion dollars. So putting this into perspective, Obama has increased the deficit by $745,200 million dollars, and wants to save $100 million dollars. It hardly even registers.

The media is calling the $100 million dollar savings, "a million dollars a day". However, the increased level of spending of Obama's budget is $2041.6 million dollars a day. This just highlights the level of political theater that is going on here.