Why Federal Government Has Us With $14 Trillion in Debt ...

... they can't do simple math.

I make math errors on this blog, and when I do, someone usually corrects me pretty correctly.

Whenever a Federal director makes a major speech, you can bet it was written by others, vetted, researched, and edited before it is finally given.

That's why it is so surprising that the Federal government overestimated the value of the recent Wyoming coal deal by a factor of 10.

Instead of $20 billion going to government coffers, the "huge" deal announced by Secretary of Interior will add about $2 billion to state coffers, and that's over several years. That's a huge error. Had the state government worked their budget on a $20 billion windfall, it would have been devastating to learn that "hey, it's only $2 billion."

To put that in comparison, the Bakken is adding about half a billion to one billion dollars to the North Dakota state coffers annually. I could be way wrong on that; I haven't looked at the numbers lately. Someone can check my numbers.