Keeping with the fraternity ritual of presenting readers with meaningless numbers the Washington Post told readers that President Obama’s proposed expansion of the Pell Grant program will increase spending by $40 billion over the next decade. This number is completely meaningless to virtually all readers of the Washington Post — if you added or removed a zero, most would not notice the difference — yet the Post refuses to make the simple comparison that would give the number some meaning to its readers.

–Dean Baker

Dean Baker is senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several books, including Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Read more about Dean.