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And of course, USAFacts' interpretation of the responsibilities of government are right out of the liberal progressive manifesto... but I think that is the way the data need to be reported, because there is no Constitutional anchor-point for 2/3rds of what the US Federal Gov't actually does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would it extrapolate 25% lower values on all other years? If the 10th years are the actual data points, the computed trend line through only census years shouldn't be so radically different from the drawn markers. In any case, the differences are small in this instance over the long run The differences in those years are _huge_.
> If the 10th years are the actual data points, the computed trend line through only census years shouldn't be so radically different from the drawn markers. Except if the trend line is based on the other data source, and the peaks on the census data.
And of course, USAFacts' interpretation of the responsibilities of government are right out of the liberal progressive manifesto... but I think that is the way the data need to be reported, because there is no Constitutional anchor-point for 2/3rds of what the US Federal Gov't actually does.
Can you explain the obsession people have with the Constitution? It seems like some people believe all new laws shouldn't exist if they're not in the Constitution.
The Tenth Amendment is pretty clear: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Now, I know, the Supreme Court has effectively gutted the Tenth Amendment, but the intent was that the Federal government was restricted to a specific set of activities, rather than allowed to do everything everyone thought was a good idea.
So if you think that the intent matters, then you see much of what the Federal government does as being a power grab of things that it never should have had the power to do - and which it still does not have the legitimate authority to do.
Noticed that on the front page. That's about as silly as referencing the average household net worth in the US, or the average income - both of which are astronomical due to how well off the top 1/3 are. Show me the median taxes paid.
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Cool. I like to get my "facts" from an unverified source.
While it is more than a bit absurd it doesn't work with https, I am not sure the "s" provides much fact verification.
"USAFacts was inspired by a conversation Steve Ballmer had with his wife. She wanted him to get more involved in philanthropic work. He thought it made sense to first find out what government does with the money it raises." Had anyone made the comic strip version? Wife: it breaks my heart to hear about the many suffering Americans. We can't take our money with us when we die, let's help our fellow Americans? Steve: t…
I get the joke, but in all seriousness we probably need both types of people in the world. Some who take immediate action and others who prepare the way for more informed action.
Yes. We do need both types of people in the world.
Dear USA Facts team, we would like to offer you few hints for public spending visualizations based on our experience. We are the creators of https://us.wikibudgets.org/w/united-states-budget-2016 . - Government spending is only a small part of the public finance. People need to see all public organisations: states and cities, departments, offices, bureaus and agencies, schools, hospital and prisons and obviously all…
I don't think this comment is particularly helpful. Sure there different ways to slice and dice this but the data set was previously unavailable anywhere . Let's just be happy that you can get some of this information today without having to drive around scanning paper documents.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this just likely to be caused by the census data?
Or more precisely, by the lack of census data in years where no actual enumeration is performed. The big jumps on census years indicate that the census department does not estimate accurately when working with 9-year-old data.
They aren't jumps suddenly correcting a bad estimate with new data. They are gigantic 25% spikes which are then immediately undone. There is no way to explain this chart by just saying that estimates worsen over time.