Infographic - US National Debt
whitehouse.gov
Infographic - US National Debt
1–10 of 32 posts
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#2Now this is a contextually appropriate informational graphic.
Something tells me the White House are making good use of Professor Tufte.
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#3Now this is a contextually appropriate informational graphic. Something tells me the White House are making good use of Professor Tufte.
It's hard to tell what exactly I'm supposed to learn from the graph. Normally, graphs like this would include a time axis, but this one does not. This makes it non-obvious that the Obama debt is over a shorter period than the Bush debt. If you normalize for time in office and discount the military spending (arguing that any president would have done similar after 9/11), then both administration's debts seem very equal.
Is there any benefit to dropping the time axis without providing an alternative?
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#4Wow, the numbers actually seem pretty conservative to me. This put Bush's stimulus at 200B. The Washington Post and NYT put it much higher (773b) [1].
I'm curious how the public will receive this.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/obamas-a...
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#5Now this is a contextually appropriate informational graphic. Something tells me the White House are making good use of Professor Tufte.
It's hard to tell what exactly I'm supposed to learn from the graph. Normally, graphs like this would include a time axis, but this one does not. This makes it non-obvious that the Obama debt is over a shorter period than the Bush debt. If you normalize for time in office and discount the military spending (arguing that any president would have done similar after 9/11), then both administration's debts seem very equa…
> discount the military spending (arguing that any president would have done similar after 9/11)
I'm pretty sure a very large part of the military spending was because of the war in Iraq, which had nothing at all to do with 9/11.
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#6It seems disingenuous to exclude partial responsibility for the occupations in Irag and Afghanistan from Obama policies given that we are still there.
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#7Now this is a contextually appropriate informational graphic. Something tells me the White House are making good use of Professor Tufte.
It's hard to tell what exactly I'm supposed to learn from the graph. Normally, graphs like this would include a time axis, but this one does not. This makes it non-obvious that the Obama debt is over a shorter period than the Bush debt. If you normalize for time in office and discount the military spending (arguing that any president would have done similar after 9/11), then both administration's debts seem very equa…
There's a ton of verbiage about X dollars of this and Y program of that which have contributed to the debt and deficit. Most of it doesn't serve to enlighten, I'm convinced that it's largely meant to confuse.
The Obama administration have just presented a very clear picture of what the components of the debt are.
Obama policies have been directed at contingencies and emergencies, not wars of choice and vast pay-offs to political benefactors. I'll grant Bush TARP.
On a per-year basis (giving Obama 1.5 years and Bush 8), the per year deficit is worse under Obama's policies, but the discretionary element is less. Bush got us into this mess, Obama's trying like hell to get us out (and last time I checked, the other team wasn't exactly cooperating enthusiastically).
We've also got the structural and internal (SSI) components of debt clearly spelled out.
Again: this is far better than I've seen from many other sources.
There's no time axis as this isn't particularly a time-based graph, it's a statement of current accounts, and an accounting of where those components came from.
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#8[deleted]
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#9Now this is a contextually appropriate informational graphic. Something tells me the White House are making good use of Professor Tufte.
It's hard to tell what exactly I'm supposed to learn from the graph. Normally, graphs like this would include a time axis, but this one does not. This makes it non-obvious that the Obama debt is over a shorter period than the Bush debt. If you normalize for time in office and discount the military spending (arguing that any president would have done similar after 9/11), then both administration's debts seem very equa…
To be fair, Obama took office in the middle of a recession and had to immediately release a massive stimulus package (recovery act).
Re: Infographic - US National Debt
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to tell what exactly I'm supposed to learn from the graph. Normally, graphs like this would include a time axis, but this one does not. This makes it non-obvious that the Obama debt is over a shorter period than the Bush debt. If you normalize for time in office and discount the military spending (arguing that any president would have done similar after 9/11), then both administration's debts seem very equa…
> discount the military spending (arguing that any president would have done similar after 9/11) I'm pretty sure a very large part of the military spending was because of the war in Iraq, which had nothing at all to do with 9/11.
I totally agree with you, but that doesn't change my point about the time axis.