Seventy Three Billion

On this morning’s Face The Nation, Senator Harry Reid says that a number has been reached for the amount of cuts to make in negotiations to prevent a government shutdown.  The number he gives is $73 billion.    This is the first time I’ve heard that number.   I’ve been reading all week that the number is $33 billion.   This number would make the Republicans very happy since they’ve been wanting $61 billion.  Of course, they would still want the cuts to be where they want them to be!

My guess is that Reid misspoke.    I am disappointed that Bob Schieffer let that number pass without asking about it.   In the blogs I read I do not see any immediate reactions to that number.

Reid comes up with the number at the 5:55 mark of the video.

 

UPDATE:

A commenter, Joe Friday, at Steve Benen’s blog at The Washington Monthly explains that Reid was simply using a different baseline and the $78 billion and $38 billion dollars are the same.

Assuming this is correct, this then is a continuation of the seemingly eternal problem the Democratic Party has with messaging.  I pay a reasonable amount of attention and Reid’s number confused me.  I guess I could be the only one who was (is?) confused…but if the same baseline was used consistently, maybe more people would understand…..

Maybe….

??????

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