Silly bogus statistics- A cost or a saving, you decide

[Baruch Menachem]

Drudge reported on the number of hits from the Senate, house and White house.
from which the guy at the link above cooked up the following guesses:

Estimate total cost of Congressional surfing of The Drudge Report: $7572 per day

As far as the White House goes, how much it costs depends upon whether a man or woman is scanning the Drudge headlines:

The White House logged 10,825 hits since March 1 which works out to 1203 Hits per day. At 30 second scans, that totals 10 Hours per day.

The average Female White House Staffer earns $72,956 per year ($36.48 per hour) while the average Male White House Staffer earns $82,346 per year ($41.17 per hour). *these numbers assume a paid 2 week vacation. (Averages available here)

A female Staffer earns $365 per day scanning Drudge.
A male Staffer earns $412 per day scanning Drudge.

That means if President Obama ordered only women White House Staffers to scan Drudge headlines, he could shave $17,155 off the Executive Branch’s Drudge budget per year. (as of July 2009)

Total cost per day of Legislative and Executive Branches in scanning Drudge Headlines: $7937

Estimate total cost of Congressional and Executive Branch labor devoted to reading the Drudge Report in the first 9 days of March 2010: $71,433**

At that pace, the Congress and White House will spend roughly $2.8 Million in tax payer dollars to surf The Drudge Report in all of 2010.

Now, I am one that fully supports congressional staff watching porn, playing solitaire or reading Drudge on the company dime. Considering what they might do to us if they actually put their shoulders to the wheel and turned in a full days work for their pay, this is a huge savings to the public.

Your mileage may vary, of course.