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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

David Frum On Paul Ryan's Bad Math

April 27th, 2011
Our previous dissections of the Path To Poverty can be found HERE and HERE

The numbers in the Ryan Path To Poverty still just don't add up. I have pointed out (along with just about every non-elected Republican who has actually read the thing) the absurdity of the Heritage numbers in particular. Rather than respond to these revelations as an alarm bell, many members of Rep. Ryan's fanclub have doubled down on it. I am not the only one who thinks this is nuts.

David Frum writes:

"Well, we all sometimes get our math wrong. But here's the strange thing: the invalidation of Heritage's job predictions has had no impact whatsoever on Republican advocacy of the Ryan plan.

Suppose I presented you with a plan to land an astronaut on Mars. You check my numbers and discover a mistake: my trajectory will instead send the astronaut hurtling into outer space. If I answer, "Well let's use that trajectory anyway," wouldn't you conclude that I was less than totally committed to the Mars mission? That perhaps I had some other goal in mind instead?"

Indeed. 

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