Statistics: According to Bush Inc, the average benefit from his tax cut is $1100 per household. There is subtle semantics here: the average benefit is $1100 per household, but the average household gets less than $100 in benefit. Similarly, the US census reports that Americans own an average of three horses per household. The average household, of course, does not own any horses. There's an old book called How to Lie With Statistics. While mathematical knowledge of probability and statistics has skyrocketted since that book was first published, little has changed in the rhetorical use of statistics by politicians to mislead the public.