Do the Math

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came up with an interesting way to help California's budget crisis. California has a $19.9 billion deficit so this is good news or is it?
Arnold wants to house 20,000 illegal immigrants in prisons built in Mexico and have Mexican guards watch them. Sounds good so far. Mexicans for the Mexicans. That is where his logic fails.
He says this will save 1 billion dollars. Fantastic. Finally a politician really saving money by thinking outside the box or outside the borders in this case. The he comes up with the statement that all politicians seem to trip on.
"We could save a billion dollars right there that could go into higher education."
Now I have nothing against higher education. I spent seven wonderful years there but I did pass first grade math. If you start with a negative $19.9 billion and save 1 billion you don't have that billion to spend, you are just $18.9 billion in the hole instead of $19.9 billion.
Duh!

It's a great day in America