Okay...where to begin. First, I don't care about not pegging it to inflation. My point was not to devise a way to project the court budget. My point was to point out to the other poster, who DID try to use population to show "bloated government", that even if you take all of his numbers as a given, that they prove the exact opposite of what he was trying to say, which is 1000% true. And no, my math is not wrong. It is 100% spot on. I don't really see what is so hard to follow. I started with the 25M (the budget in this fictional "late 60's" year which i generously grant as 1969). You then adjust that number for the population, giving you 68M. Then you adjust it for inflation which gives you 452M. But what the heck, lets do it "your" way, which makes no difference whatsoever. Start with 25M. Then lets adjust it for inflation (1969 to 2016) which puts you at 166M. Then you adjust for population (multiply by 2.72 as I mentioned above) which gives you...wait for it...452M! Check YOUR math!