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I know this is a bit long, but I wrote it as a general response to any government statistic provided by a government cube critter:

Sally Satchelbottom, DC Bureaucrat

Sally Satchelbottom (not her real name) works as a data analyst and compiler in a cubicle at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She is a product of a full 17 years of our self-esteem ‘educational’ system, graduated with a degree in economics from State U where her professors revered Marx and thought Keynes was a right-winger. She couldn’t wait to get to the DC area and go to work (?) for Uncle Sam where she could ‘make a difference.’ She pays $2,000+/month for a 1,000 sq ft flat in a drab concrete high-rise built in the 60s. She regards any place west of Hagerstown MD and south of Richmond VA as Terra Incognita full of rednecks wearing criss-cross cartridge belts, armed to the teeth, listening to David Allen Coe, driving their pickup trucks to the cleaners to drop off their Klan robes after the weekly cross burning rally. Data she sees at work tells her these people have a wide variety of occupations but she believes it’s all a front for a secret highly organized militia movement.

Sally proudly drives a Prius with its COEXIST bumper sticker. She isn’t a lesbian but has strongly considered adding a rainbow triangle sticker to show her solidarity with the gay movement. Sally didn’t date much in school (she’s pleasantly plump and starts a diet every 12 hours or so) so a photo of her nephews (who live in Indiana, Ohio or one of those other nasty flyover states) in a school-project yarn frame hangs from her rearview mirror along with her Federal ID security badge which keeps those icky citizens out of the halls of government by the people, for the people and of the people.

Sally is proud of the DC Metro and thinks that green public transport should be implemented everywhere especially in places she’s never been like Alaska, Texas and Montana. But the Metro station is very crowded and noisy so she chooses to drive to work where she can listen to Tori Amos, doing an average of 15 mph on the Beltway along with thousands of kindred environmentalists who believe in reducing emissions at all costs. She sees the empty HOV lane and swells with pride at 20% of the freeway lanes going unused. She has contemplated stopping to get coffee and a bagel but the staff don’t speak English at the places along her route. Still, she believes that diversity is strength and that America would be better off if our borders were thrown open. Needless to say, Sally voted for Obama and still has her ‘O 2012’ sticker she got from a coworker (they had a big stack of them) as a sort of trophy. Finally, Sally reaches the office. She swipes her badge, sits at her desk and begins compiling Labor Statistics.

Now...what are the chances that Sally, her colleagues, and her like-minded bosses (appointed or elected) will produce numbers favorable to the Obama administration, no matter what manipulations of raw data and formulae are required? Why is government trusted for one single second to evaluate its own performance? It’s akin to giving an NFL head coach the scoreboard controls and telling him to ‘keep it close.’ Madness.