Tag Archives: Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck Tries to Duplicate My Visual, Messes Up The Math

Last week, I posted a new video on the recent budget freeze using colored cups of water (seen here).

The following Wednesday, during the morning Glenn Beck radio show, Glenn was introduced to my work. Apparently he liked it so much that he had his own version by the evening.

I made a lot of noise on Twitter about him taking my video, but that was because I thought he actually took my video as opposed to translating it into a similar idea. Taking my idea… who cares? I’m hardly in this for the money; if people understand something better than they did before and they were true to the data, I’m happy.

But that was the problem: I don’t know who was doing the math for the demonstration, but it was way off.

Let’s assume that the 100 gallons of water represented the spending over the next 10 years.

The reason we’re making this assumption is not because it makes sense but because we’re giving Glenn the benefit of the doubt. (Glenn implies that we’re looking at the budget for 2011, but he never says that so I don’t want to lock his meaning into something he might not have meant.) According to President Obama’s 2011 budget, we expect to spend $45.9 trillion from 2011 to 2020.

Let’s also assume that Glenn is using the “$250 billion saved over 10 years” number to represent the amount of money saved. I assume this because that’s the only number that I’ve seen that is “over the next 10 years”. If this is the case, then Glenn says that what looks like a shot glass (about 2 ounces of water) represents $250 billion.

I don’t know who did the calculations, but they got it pretty far off. If $45.9 Trillion is equal to 100 gallons, then $250 billion is equal to a 2 liter bottle of water.

That’s a lot of water to chug and not nearly as impressive a visual as the little shot glass. But it is accurate.

Like I said before, taking my idea is fine if you think it helps other people understand something better. But maybe next time someone should drop me a line to make sure you get your numbers right.