Oh. My. Word. From page 6A:
More than half of prospective voters favor a 3% increase in hotel room taxes to help fund the state's cash-strapped public school system. The room tax is paid primarily by tourists. Proponents say increasing it from 10% to 13% could raise more than $150 million...
That's a 3 percentage point increase, but a 30% increase in taxes. And no, that's not a minor technicality, it's an important distinction.
(I'll have a separate post about Michelle Rhee when I get some time.)
More than half of prospective voters favor a 3% increase over the room rate (30% tax increase over the current tax rate)
ReplyDeleteAn important distinction vs. prospective visitors that use hotel rooms but don't get much say in the public schools there.
Maybe it was just dealing with large sums of money, enough so that really is 3%.
ReplyDeleteNow Darren, surely you don't expect journalists to be able to present clear and succinct thoughts on anything dealing with numbers, do you? After all, the reason they are journalists is because they couldn't pass any courses which contained mathematics.
ReplyDeleteI realize that is a very broad statement and that a few journalists can handle mathematics, but they are so few and far between that their effect on journalism is minuscule. Besides, most people who can deal with numbers find better jobs than the field of journalism. Remember, when dealing with mathematics one is forced to think and work logically, and based upon what I see those are foreign concepts to working journalists.
Why, yes, I *do* expect them to be able to, just like I expect college graduates to be able to. I also expect college graduates to be able to write coherent sentences and paragraphs.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm just an elitist that way, as my standards seem so intolerably high.
I'm still confused, how do you know they aren't just dealing with big sums of money?
ReplyDeleteI've noticed before that journalists don't understand this sort of simple math. I lost count of the number of time that doubling an amount was erroneously called a 200% increase.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand your question, anonymous. The blurb from which I quoted was only 1 paragraph long, and it gives the information about the tax increase. What do big sums of money have to do with it? It's a clear, obvious mistake.
ReplyDeleteI'm so confused.
ReplyDeleteOkay, here's what it says:
"More than half of prospective voters favor a 3% increase in hotel room taxes to help fund the state's cash-strapped public school system. The room tax is paid primarily by tourists. Proponents say increasing it from 10% to 13% could raise more than $150 million..."
So thus, 3% increase = 150million
What makes you think it's 30%?
What are you, a reporter? Let's read what I wrote:
ReplyDeleteThat's a 3 percentage point increase, but a 30% increase in taxes.
If you increase the tax rate from 10% to 13%, you've increased taxes 30%. Let's use numbers: if you make $100,000 and are taxed 10%, you're taxed $10,000. When you're taxed at 13%, that's $13,000. From $10,000 to $13,000 is a 30% increase, not 3%.
Got it! ThANKS!
ReplyDelete