Quick, Some Meaningless Budget Numbers from the NYT

Okay folks, how big a deal is $608 billion over the next ten years to the federal government? Yeah, that comes to 1.3 percent of the $48.5 trillion that we were projected to spend over this period. You all knew that, right?

Yes, the NYT is again doing the meaningless budget numbers routine, telling us that plans by House Republicans to extend a set of tax breaks over the next decade would cost $608 billion in lost revenue. A Senate plan to cover 2015 and 2014 would cost $84.1 billion (roughly...