Editorial uses odd math

The Nov. 21 Spokesman-Review editorial applauds the Spokane City Council for voting down a 1 percent property tax hike. This piece is a real head-scratcher. In the second paragraph, it rightly asserts that next year’s 1.7 percent “bump” in Social Security is minuscule, a “big whoop.” Yet, the overriding theme of the article is that a 1 percent “bump” in property taxes is just way too much. To me, “1.0” seems like a smaller number than “1.7.”

Also, consider that this editorial is from a newspaper that has increased its weekday price from 25 cents to 75 cents, over 20 years. That’s 200 percent, or a 10 percent-a-year increase, using the editorialist’s non-compounding formula. I believe that the number “10.0” is even bigger than numbers “1.7” or “1.0.”

In closing, a non-numeric question: Why does a weekday edition of The Spokesman-Review cost the same as an edition of the Seattle Times, when median household income in Spokane is so much lower than Seattle’s?

John Griffith

Spokane