Putting Numbers in Context: Give Dana Milbank a Pulitzer Prize

Regular readers of Beat the Press know that I go into the stratosphere when I see a news story or column that uses numbers in the millions, billions, or trillions and doesn't provide any context, like relating it to the total budget if it's a tax or spending item. The reason for my ire is simple: everyone knows that almost no one is going to be able to assign any significance to these Really Big Numbers. Therefore such pieces are providing no information to readers.

On the other hand it is ve...