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The test would be written by Walter Williams.

In which Robert Reich and Tim Geithner red-line my BS meter

Best. Title. Evah.

Sure they read their own reports. But like any good politician, their comments have no bass in reality.

Snidely Whiplash on August 3, 2010 at 7:50 PM

Snidely, have to disagree with you on this one. Politicians don’t even read the laws they vote on, much less the reports that are generated by millions of bureaucrats. Admin officials are no different than their political appointers. Although having some minimal educational background in some field that somehow relates to their official title, their real calling in life is politics or they wouldn’t be in DC. They’d be anywhere else on the planet complaining about politicians.

PackerBronco on August 3, 2010 at 6:53 PM

Exactly. Calling an increase in government spending an increase in GDP is a lot like saying there are fewer flies outside because you opened the door and let some of them move inside. It’s an artificial recharacterization of the original situation; with the added “benefit” that you’ve made things worse, from interrelated — and important — perspectives. In the fly situation, you’ve now got flies inside to deal with. In the government spending situation, you’ve now got national debt, currency inflation, and the opportunity cost imposed by arbitrarily usurping resources to look foerward to.

Yee-ha.

Real GDP is now increasing at an annual rate of 2.4%,

And how much of that 2.4% is due to the growth of government?

Listen you twits, speaking as a taxpayer (a concept that is alien to Turbo Timmy) growing the government is not my idea of growing the economy!

I wrote about Geithner’s op-ed here.

Do they even bother to read their own government reports?

Probably not. I consider it most likely they don’t even know they exist.

Amateurs.