2 ms·

what an intentionally misleading graphic.

• pavs 17y ago
  Can you point to the misleading part? I couldn't find it. Are you referring to policies that was taken during one administration that might have lead to deficit or surplus in the next administration?
  • dustingetz 17y ago
    its a derivative being presented as its absolute function
    • ajross 17y ago
      Not sure how that's misleading actually. The derivative in this case is "spending - revenue", which is the thing that governments can actually control. A zero-borrowing budget (which would be a huge improvement at least according to the "spending is bad" metric that seems to be en vogue) would show a debt graph that looks almost exactly like your mortgage -- flat and uninformative. Plotting the deficit shows which policies are likely to lead to sustainable government spending and which ones don't.
• jrockway 17y ago
  It's misleading because you have to take the integral to get the actual debt, right? (Which is always increasing, just apparently less quickly with democratic presidents. OTOH, a democratic president and a republican Congress is a great way to get nothing passed, which is free... and the image doesn't show anything about that.)