• $39M the amount former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has spent out of her own personal fortune, which is just insane, BTW
• $19M the amount her Republican primary competitor, Steve Poizner, has spent out of his personal fortune
• $370k the amount presumptive Democratic candidate Jerry Brown – who hasn’t declared – has spent so far source

• 17% of the budget will be affected by the cap

• » Subject to cuts: Reports say that the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Energy, Transportation, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services will be affected by the cuts. Guess what, kids? D.C.’s about to have a three-year recession.
• » Unaffected by cuts: Social Security and Medicare (he couldn’t touch those even if he wanted), and organizations affected by military, veterans, homeland security and international affairs. The cuts only take on discretionary spending.

A douchey comment by Michael Steel:

• Given Washington Democrats’ unprecedented spending binge, this is like announcing you’re going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest.
• Rep. John Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel • Regarding the budget cuts. Considering the year of controversial spending that the Obama administration has just had, we imagine any cuts in the nature of this would be welcomed by the right. Or maybe they’ll make jokes about pie contests. We’ll see. source

• Note: in an earlier version of this story, we mistook Michael Steel for RNC chair Michael Steele. We apologize. We’re sure he gets that a lot. At least we’re not alone in making this boneheaded mistake.Thanks to Joel McDonald for correcting us below. Much appreciated.
  

• $36.4
  million the amount the Chamber of Commerce (which represents businesses) spent on political campaigns in 2008, mostly Republican Senate campaigns
• $30.7
  million the amount the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (a major union group) spent on mostly Democratic campaigns source

• $75 average cost of digital cable for subscribers each month
• 5% average increase in cable prices each painful, depressing year
• $95 the expected average cost of digital cable in five years; blech source

• $100
  billion to help with additional benefits, food stamps and health insurance for the unemployed
• $70
  billion to create more jobs, except this time with more sprinkles and frosting, we think source

• $183 the amount Bloomberg spent on each vote source

• $98 billion in unnecessary spending, big or small, in 2008 source

• $85 million the amount Michael Bloomberg has spent on his current mayoral campaign – $322,521 on catered food alone source