Politicians Wanted - Math Skills Not Required.

Apparently math is not a required subject for politicians. As this post points out, even the most basic back-of-the-lobbyists-cocktail napkin calculation shows a price that's almost 4x higher than the number's being thrown around.

"Somehow, Isakson puts the cost of his tax break at just $19 billion. Let's break the Washington rules and try a little arithmetic. Even with weakness in the housing market, it is still virtually certain that we will sell close to 5 million homes in 2009. The overwhelming majority would qualify for the full credit. So, we get 5 million times $15,000. That sounds a lot like $75 billion."

Even if we assume the average house is only worth $100k, so the average credit will be $10k, that's still $50B not $19B.

Seriously, how do we let these people "represent" us? If the credit will work, fine, but let's put a real price on it not some made up number.

If anyone has any insights into their calculations I'd love to see them.