Raising the Federal Debt Limit

(See here) a Washington Post article that reports Treasury Secretary Snow says Congress must raise the federal debt limit or the USA will be unable to pay its bills.

What is particularly interesting is that the last time the debt limit was raised, in November of 2004, it was raised by 800 billion dollars. But when politicians speak of deficit spending, they try to low ball the amount of deficit spending by saying it stands at 340 billion dollars a year. (See here) a Washington Post article that is an example of where this is claimed. I guess they must use some of what Dubyah called "fuzzy math" during one Presidential debate.

Let's do some of our own math. The article states that Congress is expected to bump the debt limit by the middle of February. That means 15 months since the last time they bumped it. 800 billion divided by 15 equals 53.33 billion a month. 53.33 times 12 equals 639.96 billion a year. That would be almost double the amount the figure politicians speak of when they talk about deficit spending.

I can't imagine our government would intentionally try to mislead us, so there must be another explanation. Someone tell them politicians they need to change the battery in their calculators or something.