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Political Math: The Old New Math
It's time for schools to make their mathematics instruction more relevant and oriented to the real world. And the best way to do that is to teach the original new math, "Political Math." Here's a sample Political Math problem:
Q. Last year Program X had a budget of 100 billion dollars. This year its budget was 150 billion dollars. What was the budget cut - or in other words, by how much was the budget viciously slashed by the incompassionate forces of hate and bigotry?
A. The budget cut was 60 billion dollars, since Project X could have spent 200 billion this year if only the miserly hate-mongers of the Far Right hadn't put obstacles in the path of progress and social justice. We should have spent $200 billion, but we only spent $150 billion. You do the math. $60 billion was stolen from the needy by the rich.
Every child needs to know Political Math to be prepared for the real world - you know, the world of the Nightly News and the New York Times.