U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet tried his hand at blasting President Trump on Twitter because of the government shutdown, and failed, miserably.
Here’s the tweet:
Today marks up to $24 MILLION in lost revenue due to closed national parks in Colorado. @realDonaldTrump‘s shutdown is causing our state’s outdoor economy to lose $1.9 million per day and withholding pay from more than 7,000 Coloradans. This is unacceptable.
— Michael Bennet (@SenBennetCO) January 2, 2019
So few characters, so many mistakes in basic facts.
Bennet’s office now acknowledges this shutdown impact figure is overestimated. They took total national park visitor spending annually and divided by 365 days. Colorado’s natl. parks are packed in the summer/fall and often largely empty this time of year. #9NEWS #copolitics https://t.co/mq2GDMggkm
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) January 3, 2019
But that’s not all Bennet got wrong.
He divided by 365 days, but parks aren’t open 365 days a year. In fact, National Parks are always closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
So even if he did have the right amount of park earnings per day, he counted too many days.
Instead of 12 and a half days (at the time of the tweet), it should have been eight.
Not only that, but some parks like Rocky Mountain insist they are not technically closed, just some entrances blocked off and other inconveniences thrown at visitors to remind them the government is closed.
As for withholding pay, we don’t know of any job that issues paychecks after 12 days, so Bennet jumped the gun on that one, too.
If Bennet wants to run for president, he’s going to have to do a lot better than these rookie mistakes.