New Math

These people are your leaders: Wyoming Republican Senator John Thune has offered a deficit reduction plan that he says will eliminate the nation's shortfall in 10 years. How does he propose to accomplish this ambitious feat? By reducing the deficit 10% per year, of course.

Thune...discussed [his] bill's call for the creation of a Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, tasked with reducing the deficit 10 percent year over year.

"It would be required to find 10% in savings -- 10% of the deficit in savings every budget cycle," Thune said.

"So in 10 years we wouldn't have a deficit?" van Sustern asked.

"Theoretically, yes," Thune replied. "10% Is a floor. Obviously -- you can go beyond that."

"Theoretically?" In math circles, this is known as a wrong answer. Along the same lines as the logical conclusion that if you continually reduce a number by half you will never reach zero (Zeno's paradox), under Thune's plan there would still be a deficit 20 years hence -- and into the foreseeable future -- without some added component to reduce the number by more than a constant fractional. Here are the hard numbers on Thune's epic mathematics fail:

Assume the deficit is $1,000,000. Reduce it by 10% in Year 1...
Year 2: $900,000 x .9 =
Year 3: $810,000 x .9 =
Year 4: $729,000 x .9 =
Year 5: $656,100 x .9 =
Year 6: $590,940 x .9 =
Year 7: $531,441 x .9 =
Year 8: $478,297 x .9 =
Year 9: $430,467 x .9 =
Year 10: $387,420 x .9 =
[...]
Year 20: $135,085

Maybe in John Thune's next life he can come back as Treasury Secretary or Chairman of the Federal Reserve?