Incoming HHS secretary Tom Daschle hosted a town meeting in Dublin, Indiana to build support for the new administration’s health care policies. It is worth taking him seriously for a moment — he is going to head HHS, after all.
He said that “When we combine the stories of Dublin and multiply that times 300 million people, we begin to appreciate the magnitude of the problem.”
I went ahead and multiplied Dublin’s 697 people by 300 million. That yields a little over 209 billion people, or thirty times the earth’s population.
Yes, this is being too literalist. All the same, politicians are not to be taken at their word.
Inertia Wins! 