Three Charts Republicans Should Know

[MrFun]

Three Charts To Email To Your Right-Wing Brother-In-Law

By Dave Johnson
August 28, 2011 - 12:08pm ET

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 them up. People who 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.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6080/6088811201_96839c6977.jpg

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Here's actual article - how does a person post images from an article on here?

[Guynemer]

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6080/...96839c6977.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6199/6089355018_3eea3fa4be.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6071/6088811219_7177d24faa.jpg

Here's actual article - how does a person post images from an article on here?

With img and /img tags:

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

On so many levels the wrongness of this article is breathtaking.

[Ben Kenobi]

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.

Obama will have outspent Bush by March of next year, spending in 3 years, what took Bush 8. It's possible, that should deficit spending persist, that Obama would outspend all other presidents combined before he leaves office.

People who claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" are wrong.

In 2007, the deficit was 163 billion dollars. Obama has yet to successfully pass a budget, but he's spending close to 1.5 trillion dollars in deficit every year. So yeah, tripling the deficit is wrong. Of that 1.5 trillion dollars, over 1.2 of it is increased spending over and above the Bush spending levels. This is a spending increase of 72 percent over Bush-era spending. America doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem and that starts with Obama and ends with Reid and Pelosi.

THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!

If we look at all other recessions, they get better after 18 months. Rather then getting better after 18 months, and returning to Pre-Obama levels of prosperity, the recession has continued. Clearly stimulus has extended the recession beyond the normal business cycle. Doing nothing would have been the better outcome.

[giblets]

This is going to be a really retarded thread, I suspect.

[Provost Harrison]

This is going to be a really retarded thread, I suspect.

Ben has arrived, where else could it go?

[Hauldren Collider]

Ben and MrFun arguing is what you would get if you tried to combine Crossfire and Jerry Springer.

[-Jrabbit]

I considered posting this article, but then I would have been expected to defend it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben and MrFun arguing is what you would get if you tried to combine Crossfire and Jerry Springer.

Uh, wasn't that what Crossfire was about? I mean Buchanan used to be on the program.

[Tupac Shakur]

I considered posting this article, but then I would have been expected to defend it.

You chose wisely in not posting it, as it's indefensible.

[Kidlicious]

You chose wisely in not posting it, as it's indefensible.

ummm it's economics, so yes it's defensible.

[Tupac Shakur]

The numbers in the first two graphs are quite obviously incorrect, but it's impossible to say why since the process by which such obviously incorrect numbers were derived is not explained.

[DaShi]

Crystal ball, I believe.

[Tupac Shakur]

Here's actual deficit numbers without the questionable partisan attributions.

[OzzyKP]

What is the difference between the deficit and the increase in debt? Why wouldn't those numbers be the same?