Nancy Pelosi Debt Chart Goes Viral Again, Despite Misleading Data About Obama, Bush

Sometimes data does lie.

The chart below has been incredibly viral in recent days, making its way across the internet in one form or another, reaching Facebook walls across the country. The problem is, it's incredibly misleading.

According to the MoveOn.org, where it originally gained notice, the chart originated from the office of Nancy Pelosi back in May. The original chart listed the public debt under President Barack Obama to be a meager 16 percent, but was corrected to 35 percent following some investigation by PolitiFact.com (Obama's numbers had been evaluated a year too early).

However, as The Washington Post points out, the data in the chart are still incredibly misleading.

While it lists "percent increase in public debt" as the metric being analyzed, the chart actually measures gross federal debt, which includes debt being held by the likes of the Social Security trust fund. If the chart actually measured public debt, according to the Post, the numbers for Obama and former President George W. Bush would be a lot closer, at 60 and 70 percent respectively.

But what's even worse is the metric being used. The percent of debt has no reflection on GDP, which would compensate for the amount of debt. The Washington Post details the problem:

If the chart were recast to show how much the debt went up as a percentage of GDP, it would look pretty bad for Obama after not even three years in office. In fact, Obama does almost twice as poorly as Reagan -- and four times worse than George W. Bush.

However, there's more to the situation than plain numbers. In fact, the reason for Obama's poor adjusted numbers may largely result from Bush-era tax cuts and spending. This chart, which was released by the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, shows how Bush-era tax cuts will likely be the largest contributor to public debt by the year 2019.

The only question left is, why is this misleading chart (which has been debunked numerous times) still up?

The chart, via Nancy Pelosi's Flickr stream:

Earlier on HuffPost:

Comments

[brawnydoc]

02:41 AM on 10/06/2011

A girect quote from the article

"If the chart were recast to show how much the debt went up as a percentage of GDP, it would look pretty bad for Obama after not even three years in office. In fact, Obama does almost twice as poorly as Reagan -- and four times worse than George W. Bush."

[brawnydoc]

02:39 AM on 10/06/2011

As usual, MoveOn.org lies to help Obama

[wxw101]

03:59 PM on 10/05/2011

The truth of this... numbers can be made to show anything you want them to show.

And when they don't, just make up a new statistic like "jobs saved."

[General Public]

08:39 AM on 10/05/2011

So the biggest contributor to the total national debt is going to be the Bush tax cuts by the time it's 2019... that means the Bush tax cuts already are the biggest contributor to the deficits, since deficits add up over time to create debt. Anyway, Nancy Pelosi didn't make this chart, one of her many staffers obviously did, probably an intern or something, but hopefully she'll keep her staff from making mistakes like this again and have them fact-check stuff BEFORE they post it online. I mean you really think Nancy Pelosi personally made that chart and uploaded it to Flickr? Of course not. She has a huge staff. Some random nobody we never heard of who works for her on her Internet operations probably made the mistake. And no, I don't think that it was intentional, because something like that, too-good-to-be-true numbers about the deficit, would obviously be fact-checked by other people on the Internet, since the deficit is public knowledge and anyone can look it up. But back to the point, the biggest contributor to the deficit is tax cuts for the wealthy, and we can balance the budget by raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. There's a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and obviously, the only possible source of revenue for the government is people who actually have money. The top 1% make more money than the bottom 50%.

[wxw101]

04:03 PM on 10/05/2011

Nobody gives a carp about fact checking.... You throw stuff like this up to make an impression on people. It could have one pinky toe grounded in reality, but if enough bobbleheads (and this time I mean on both sides) forward it on - "Mission Accomplished."

I think the problem here is you libs actually believe there is some truth out there, when the truth is as artful to the person perceiving it as the person presenting it. In the end, we believe what we want to, and what we have been educated to (which is a whole other rant).

[Bryant Lister]

11:54 PM on 10/05/2011

And Conservatives actually believe that raising taxes on the top 5% is going to 'kill jobs'. The facts of the past decade prove that to be untrue, yet Conservatives continue to believe this nonsense talking point.

[mfmaccloud]

09:24 PM on 10/05/2011

Your also self stupid

[2Patriotic4U]

03:52 AM on 10/05/2011

Is anyone surprised that Pelosi is proven to be a Liar, again?

[MCouture]

03:25 PM on 10/04/2011

According to the article: "This chart, which was released by the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, shows how Bush-era tax cuts will likely be the largest contributor to public debt by the year 2019".
If the Bush tax cuts were so bad, why did he have record revenues in 2007-2008?
Taxing less is not the cause of "debt", spending is.

[General Public]

08:58 AM on 10/05/2011

Why did he have record revenues at the height of the housing bubble? Because that was the height of economic activity, before the economy contracted. Duh. That has nothing to do with marginal tax rates, it's because of the economy. Back then a lot of people were making a lot of money off the housing boom... before it went bust and they lost it all. If you decreased taxes to zero, the government's revenue would be zero, and 100% of government spending would be part of that year's deficit and added to the debt. Conversely, if you raised taxes so that the government takes in more money than it spends, you would have a budget surplus, and the debt would actually decrease every year of the surplus until it got paid off completely. I don't understand why you have debt in quotes, do you not believe in its existence or what? The debt is very real. Government revenue - government spending = surplus if positive, deficit if negative. Debt = total of all deficits, minus total of all surpluses. That's something called math, maybe you've heard of it.

[project cooper]

02:03 PM on 10/04/2011

Looks like she didn't bother reading this either.

[peapers]

01:53 PM on 10/04/2011

I'm guessing Nancy didn't do very well in math when she was in school.

[SOD]

02:52 AM on 10/06/2011

She probably sucked... her way to the top of her class.

[gafl3]

12:51 PM on 10/04/2011

I have always said Democrtes never let a fact get in the way of an argument, typical left wing propaganda. They make discisions on policies base on wishful thinking NOT ON THE FACTS, and that is why this country is a mess

[computerfan]

12:35 PM on 10/04/2011

The economy has a bad cold. Obama has to learn that no matter how much chicken soup you eat, or other old wives tales remedies he tries, the only way to cure a cold is to do nothing. That's right do nothing. Let it play out without killing the patient like he is doing right now.

[callingcar13]

10:08 AM on 10/04/2011

The Obama aministration and emocrats kep assuring that there is enough money in Social Security and that it is safe. They keep saving that it is proected by Treasury Bonds when in fact the Treasury Bonds are useless because the Government has to borrow money to make them good. I don't agree with a lot of the Republican ideas on Social Security but at least they are putting ideas forth while the Democrats lying to the Citizens about the problem and borrowing more money is the way to go

[SOD]

02:53 AM on 10/06/2011

Emocrats... I like it whether it was intentional or not.

[rm42749]

09:51 AM on 10/04/2011

Despite the amount of spending by anyone in government the economy is still in big trouble. The Obama spending doesn't seem to have done any good at all. I see no improvement. In fact it looks like we are in worse shape now than we were before Obama. His try it and see if it works method of addressing economic problems is just adding enormous amounts of debt to everyone in the US. We need a change now. Dump Obama now.

[quixmar]

08:47 AM on 10/04/2011

I'm missing somethinghere. The story includes a line which says... "the chart actually measures gross federal debt, which includes debt being held by the likes of the Social Security trust fund."

If the government has been raiding (borrowing against) the "Social Security trust fund" which we know does not really exist anyway, how does the "Social Security trust fund" hold any debt? Sounds like they are more or less holding the bag.

[AstorsCatfish]

09:39 AM on 10/04/2011

I believe we're not supposed to worry our pretty little heads with questions like these and just smile and know that it will all be OK if we just trust (your favorite candidate here)..

[Marxistslayer]

08:19 AM on 10/04/2011

Is this big news? Or is Gambling with our money on projects like Solyndra big news, Fast & Furious?

[quixmar]

08:52 AM on 10/04/2011

NO NO NO Marxistslayer. You can't mention Solyndra. Those were them green jobs Obama always hopes that we will all have. And I always thought that a green job was gardeners and landscapers.

And why is Obama pushing electric cars while simultaneously trying to rid us of electric generating plants? That makes sense to Democrats too!

[jerrym930]

07:46 AM on 10/04/2011

www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

I forgot to put this link on my previous post to show where I found the numbers. I had to calculate the numbers I gave, as these spread sheets only give year end numbers. This link has many spread sheets on the budgets and debt. A few even go back to the beginning of the nation.