But it's hard to tell. With enough manipulation of axes and scales, people can prove anything with a chart.
Posted on 08/29/2011 2:48:46 PM PDT by ozarkgirl
Three Charts to Email to Your Right-Wing Brother-In-Law Monday 29 August 2011 by: Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed
Federal spending dramatically increased under former president, George W. Bush and it has not increased much under President Obama. (Photo: Eric Draper / White House)
Problem: Your right-wing brother-in-law is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh lie machine, and keeps sending you emails about "Obama spending" and "Obama deficits" and how the "Stimulus" just made things worse.
Solution: Here are three "reality-based" charts to send to him. These charts show what actually happened.
Spending
Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.
Deficits
Notes, this chart includes Clinton's last budget year for comparison.
The numbers in these two charts come from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. They are just the amounts that the government spent and borrowed, period, Anyone can go look then up. Peoplewho claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" are either misled or are trying to mislead.
The Stimulus and Jobs
In this chart, the RED lines on the left side -- the ones that keep doing DOWN -- show what happened to jobs under the policies of Bush and the Republicans. We were losing lots and lots of jobs every month, and it was getting worse and worse. The BLUE lines -- the ones that just go UP -- show what happened to jobs when the stimulus was in effect. We stopped losing jobs and started gaining jobs, and it was getting better and better. The leveling off on the right side of the chart shows what happened as the stimulus started to wind down: job creation leveled off at too low a level.
It looks a lot like the stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus.
Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!
More False Things
These are just three of the false things that everyone "knows." Some others are (click through): Obama bailed out the banks, businesses will hire if they get tax cuts, health care reform cost $1 trillion, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is "going broke", government spending "takes money out of the economy."
Why This Matters
These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama -- tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want -- when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.
1055 Email DAVE JOHNSON Dave Johnson (Redwood City, CA) is a Fellow at Campaign for America's Future, writing about American manufacturing, trade and economic/industrial policy. He is also a Senior Fellow with Renew California.
Dave has more than 20 years of technology industry experience including positions as CEO and VP of marketing. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. And he was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.
But it's hard to tell. With enough manipulation of axes and scales, people can prove anything with a chart.
The truth is what it is.
I loathe both parties equally.
Unlike you, I am not blindfolded by partisan propaganda.
OTOH, you wear your GOP kneepads well.
Ozarkgirl:
I so want to post this url on her site but I will refrain.
Dear friend,
I was taken aback by your comments to me, and your enclosed charts.
So I asked my FRiends how to respond to your communication.
I am attaching my FRiends responses to your charts, as it appears that your statistics may not represent the full realities of the past decade or so.
Please review the attached with an open mind.
Love, ozarkgirl
PS, have a nice life, you loser!
Lol! Actually for a lib, she’s not bad. I got into a “discussion” with someone on her site, can’t even remember now but I felt compelled to post “I’m sorry I junked up your site, if anyone wishes to discuss further, please post to me directly”. She wrote back “No apology needed, discussion is what is important”.
Now I remember it was when the Dems said something about how we should not use “hate speak” when talking about one another, when that psycho shot the Dem Senator or Rep in Texas and this guy was trying to blame it on Sarah Palin, and I’m like “he had no political affiliation either way”.
Keynesian economics fundamentally considers all deficit spending as stimulus spending. So we've had not the $800 billion in Keynesian stimulus that the author claims, but $5 TRILLION in Keynesian stimulus spending - the deficit since President Obama took over.
Now ask them - since we actually had over 6 times the stimulus dollars spent per Keynesian theory - do we REALLY need even more? Is $5 trillion not enough? Do we need to double or triple that? Because that's what we've actually spent per their theory, and it hasn't worked.
That guts their argument. We've had massive stimulus from a Keynesian viewpoint and it hasn't worked - it's made things worse. Once that is brought to light, the rest of the argument crumbles.
President Bush did NOT sign the FY2009 budget, President Obama signed it. It wasn't even passed out of the House and Senate until after President Obama was sworn into office.
That FY2009 budget they're trying to hang on President Bush? That's a lie - it was passed by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and signed into law by President Obama. President Bush had nothing to do with it. So take the FY2009 data and switch it over to Obama - it's his responsibility, not President Bush.
And that's straight from the Government itself.
And in context of what Dick Cheney was talking about - re-election strategy and debate points - he was correct. For most people considering which candidate to vote for, deficits don't matter.
That quote was taken out of context and has been so abused and misused that it bears no resemblance to the original at all.
Source please. Because the we've spent about 27% of that amount. You like regurgitating libtard talking points?
I see you have your Dem Bot talking points and cannot be bothered to learn any fact that challenges your emotion based dogmas.
I would not bother. The lefties love to play games that are all related to the old question "have you stopped beating your wife yet". These weasels do not care for the truth, here. They just want to see you "scramble around". Like you are doing. It is a trap!
Even if you refute this idiot with profound facts and figures, he does not care; his job is done.
Do as you will, but I would refuse to answer his question and answer the question you would love to answer. For instance, What is going to happen in the 2012 election? My answer and reply would go something like this: screw your worthless charts- Obama is going to get creamed in a landslide in 2012.
FWIW
I see - a study from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies... Real reliable.
I see it includes a lot of soft costs, costs of “lost money” and the like. Does it include the savings of a few million Kurds? The lives of tens of thousands of people? The savings with stabilized oil? The opportunity gains of 55 million people now free?
No? Didn’t think so... Hard costs count; all that soft stuff, you need to consider the soft gains to offset it since it is all soft. Unless you have an agenda and want to just attack - which appears to be your modus operandi.
I loathe both parties equally.
I mostly agree with you. At this stage I see the Dem party is totaled and utterly unredeemable. The Repub party on the other hand just might, just might have a chance at redemption. The Tea parties do have their sway.
I like to remind those who care to know, that Bush had his good points and his bad point. He was the last conservative democrat! The Repub Congress from 2001 to 2007, under Denny Hastert, lost their way. I remember fuming over the Medicare Part D, deficits, creation of another gov beauracy (DHS), amnesty, etc. And this housing/mortgage crisis was a multi-player event with both parties contributing (the evil party slept with the stupid party and the country got knocked up). I used to grumble that I did not have a party anymore. So I feel your pain.
I am willing to see the Repubs take control once again, but I do remember being burned.
Where is the “BARF” alert??
Now we know why the Line Item Veto will never be enacted.
Lol! I like the way you think!
Juat taking the 2nd graph.. it comes from one of the 65 spreadsheets at that gov’t site. Using the same sheet, but examining the change in deficit, it is clear that once Obama took office the deficit increase at 3X the rate of the last year when Bush was in office. And that year Reid and Pelosi controlled the budget.
Whoever made the graphs was an example of “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure”.
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