Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

Let's parse that sentence. It seems to say that "had all of Reagan's budgets been
adopted, federal spending would have been 25 percent less on a cumulative basis." In fact,
that's exactly what it says.
What does that mean? Well, it seems to mean that if Congress had passed all of the
budgets that Reagan proposed, then the government would have "cumulatively" spent 25 percent
less money. That's a fair interpretation, right? And if true, that means Congress was responsible
for the Reagan era deficits.
Now let's look at the "totals" section of the table. What appears to be the total of
Reagan's proposals are about $200 billion less than what appears to be the total of Congress's
budget-busting appropriations. Or, as the table says in the "average percentage difference"
section, the difference is 2.8 percent (or, actually, 2.68 percent-if you're schooled in long division,
as neither Hannity nor his source Kottman seem to be).
How does that get us to the "cumulative" 25 percent? That seems to be where the
right-hand column comes in. I stared and stared at the thing, and couldn't make a whit's worth
of sense out of it. So I faxed the table to some good friends, and Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron,
got back to me in a jiff.
"He's compounding the difference, Al." "I don't understand, Ken."
"It's simple. The first year the difference between Reagan's proposal and the actual
number is 7.3 percent. The second year is 4.5 percent. So, he multiplies 1.073 times 1.045
and gets 1.121. Thus, a 12.1 percent `cumulative' difference. And then on and on."
"You know what's funny, Ken? Even over the phone I can hear the quotation marks
around the word ‘cumulative.'"
"Well, that's because what he's doing is completely meaningless. Remember how we
just calculated a 12.1 percent cumulative difference? That assumes that when Reagan was
making his second budget, he was somehow tied to the ‘actual' number from the previous
year. But he's not tied. He can propose whatever budget he wants."
"Hmmm. You see, that time I thought I heard quotation marks around ‘actual.'"
"Oh yeah, there's no reason to trust any of the numbers from this guy. For example, he
says that Reagan proposed 695.3 billion dollars in '82 and Congress approved a budget of
745.8 billion dollars. He got the Reagan number right, but Congress `actually' approved 696
billion dollars in their concurrent budget resolution."