Donald Trump Is A Math Dunce

The following post is by Andy Borowitz at The Borowitz Report:

Donald Trump's firing of Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has been widely seen as a tantrum caused by disastrous job numbers. That’s true, up to a point, but I think his motivation went a good deal deeper. 

You see, Trump hates the very concept of numbers. Why? Because he sucks at math. Brutally.

In fact, math might be his worst school subject, and that includes geography (he thinks there is an African country called Nambia) and history (he thinks the British had airports during the Revolutionary War).

Since Trump has spent over half a century in the business world, you might expect him to be good with numbers; but since he had to file for bankruptcy six times, maybe not.

His staggering math stupidity revealed itself in worrisome fashion during an appearance in 2006 with Ivanka and Don Jr. on Howard Stern’s radio show. After asking the younger Don whether he had attended Wharton, Stern issued this follow-up: “What’s seventeen times six?”

Stumped by this brainteaser, Don Jr. guessed 96 and 94, both incorrect. With Ivanka offering her brother no lifeline, it fell to Dad to save the day. He confidently answered “Eleven-twelve,” meaning 1,112. He was off by a mere 1,010. The correct answer is 102.

You read that right: when it comes to math, Trump is even stupider than Don Jr. But as Little Don’s former fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, would say, “THE WORST IS YET TO COME.”

After boasting, in 2020, “I know South Korea better than anybody,” Trump declared that Seoul had a population of 38 million, overshooting the correct answer by 28 million. His biggest math mistake, though, was one he made in his first budget, in 2017. That goof, which wasn’t exactly a rounding error, totaled $2 trillion.

In his second term in office, his math skills appear to have deteriorated—if such a thing is possible.

Speaking to members of Congress last month, Trump boasted, “This is something that nobody else can do. We’re gonna get the drug prices down. Not 30 or 40% which would be great, not 50 or 60, no. We’re gonna get ‘em down 1,000%, 600%, 500%, 1,500%.”

That is, in fact, something that nobody else can do—because it’s mathematically impossible. Let’s do a little calculation, shall we?

The price of a month’s worth of Ozempic is about $1000. 1500% of that would be $15,000. So if Trump reduced the cost by that amount, the makers of Ozempic would have to pay the customer $14,000.

No wonder Trump fired the Labor Statistics boss: math makes his head hurt. Molly Ivins's quote about Dan Quayle applies equally well to Donald Trump: “If you put that man’s brain in a bumblebee, it would fly backwards.”

This report was adapted from my book, Profiles in Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber.

Republicans Are NOT Fiscally Responsible - And They're Trying To Hide That

Catherine Rampell (The Washington Post) explains the nasty trick Republicans want to use to hide the cost of their tax cuts for the rich: 

Senate Republicans on Wednesday decided their party alone will control how math works. This is a pressing legislative question at present, because pretzeling budgetary outcomes into prettier shapes and sizes will determine whether Republicans can pass President Donald Trump’s promised tax cuts.

Those cuts are very expensive. They include not only extensions of the 2017 tax law provisions (set to expire this year), but they also lower corporate rates as well as carveouts for tips, auto loan payments and other goodies. In total, Trump’s preferred tax agenda could cost between $5 trillion and $11 trillion over the next decade.

This is inconvenient. Republicans like to pretend they’re fiscal conservatives (at least some of the time). They would prefer not to acknowledge the hefty price tag, and they also don’t want to fully offset it with unpopular spending cuts.

So, they’ve devised a cheat. Rather than admitting how much their tax agenda would cost, they are simply asserting that they get their first $4 trillion — free!

Here’s how: Republicans say that because some (expiring) tax cuts have been in place since 2017, extending them shouldn’t be recorded as costing anything, because they wouldn’t feel different. This is ... not how budgets work. As I’ve explained before, it’s like saying even though your car lease has ended, leasing another car should count as “free” because you got used to the convenience of having a vehicle around.

Normally, neutral referees are available to call out this kind of funny business.

First, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office “scores” significant legislation, to determine how much a bill would change revenue and spending in the years ahead, compared with what would happen if Congress allowed existing law to remain as it is. Then, a person called the Senate parliamentarian would confirm that the CBO number matches what lawmakers had previously agreed their bill would cost. If it doesn’t, the bill becomes much harder to pass.

Republicans have been trying to persuade the Senate parliamentarian to adopt their preferred math. So far, the parliamentarian has delayed making a ruling. But on Wednesday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) announced the parliamentarian won’t ever need to decide. He plans to do what the party wants either way.

“I have the authority to determine baseline numbers for spending and revenue,” Graham said in a statement. Under that authority, he said, he can use the special book-cooking math — a “current policy baseline” — that grants his party $4 trillion in freebies.

In other words: 2+2=5, if Republicans decree it so.