Fraction Fiction Friction
Julie Beck provides yet another reminder that facts alone are rarely enough to change a person’s false beliefs: This Article Won’t Change Your Mind. But the surprisingly limited power of facts isn’t stopping those who oppose them from going after yet another target. This time, they’re coming for your calculator. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is the target of a smear campaign ahead of the release of its analysis of the new health plan. Vox has an explainer on the CBO.
+ The White House is also suggesting that the Obama administration manipulated jobs data to skew the unemployment numbers. Who would have thought that math would inspire so much creative storytelling?
+ Assuming you’re still clinging to the whole arithmetic thing, here’s NYT Upshot with the five big numbers to look for in the C.B.O. report on health care reform. (But they’re rounding up from 13,999,999.)
+ And just in, the CBO predicts that 14 million fewer people would be insured by 2018 under GOP health care law.
+ Numbers aside, it’s extremely difficult to reverse a major program of social benefits once it has taken effect.