Help me refute my math nerd cousin

[mysticalchick]

There was a post on FB about who ran up the deficit the most showing Reagan and Bush2 (of course) and my cousin (a usually 'in the background' kind of Catholic republican) posted this under it. I can haz help refuting this please? (Or not, if it's correct.)

"Please excuse the math geek in me but I can't resist a statistic painting an inaccurate picture. Here's the facts from the Wkipedia website: Bush from 2001 - 2008: the public national debt went from $5.8 trillion to $10.0 trillion. That is an increase in $4.2 trillion over 8 years for an average rate of increase 5.25% per year or 42% increase overall. Obama in less than 3 years from 2009 - Feb 2011 took the public debt from $10 trillion to $14.2 trillion for the same $4.2 trillion increase which is 30% increase (building off a higher base) and an average of 9.8% increase per year. If we project the same pace and a second term then we can estimate he would go from $10 trillion to $21.2 trillion which would be an increase of over 50%. I love math. I love facts."

true dat?

Here's a link to the pic: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1994983&mesg_id=1994983

[ElboRuum]

1. Point out that his math is fine, his logic is not.

Point out the fact that there is no reason to project the same pace, especially since increases in spending are responses to various economic needs which are quite fluid. Have any other Presidents increased the deficit by the same percentages year in and year out? No? Well, then to expect Obama to operate in a straight line as he suggests would be implausible at best, and indicates a certain disconnect from reality in those who would assert it.

[Old Codger]

2. Also

A good part of the debt increase under Obama is a direct consequence of bush and his corny rethugs running two wars and causing the total collapse of our economic base.

[Warpy]

25. Also point out that the 2009 budget year belonged to Stupid

while the year he's counting as Stupid's first year had the balanced Clinton budget running the government.

In addition, point out that both Stupid's wars were kept off the books and jack up his total considerably. Obama has put them back on the books.

Then point out that Obama has had 2 years of signing Congressional budgets and ask what effect the GOP forcing a continuation of Stupid's ruinous tax cuts for those two years as had.

Finally, just point out that while he might have a firm grasp of numbers, he lacks an equally firm grasp of history and when fiscal years start and stop and this makes him uniquely unqualified to try to prognosticate.

[The Magistrate]

30. Indeed, Sir: Here Are the Actual Figures....

At the start of the first fiscal year of the Bush regime, debt stood at five trillions, eight hundred ten billions.

At the end of the last fiscal year of the Bush regime, debt stood at eleven trillions, nine hundred twenty billions.

That is indeed an increase on the order one hundred sixteen percent, of six dollars of new debt added to every five dollars of existing debt.

Precise figures can be found here:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway

[Mass]

3. The math is correct, but the economical reasoning is not sound.

The reasons why the debt increased during the two periods has to be examined. How much of the $4 trillions were necessary due to policies of the Bush area? How much are necessary due to errors of the Obama administration? And, to be correct with Bush, how much of the $4 trillions of the Bush area are due to the Clinton policies?

[bemildred]

4. He is correct, more or less.

Although under Obama I think we have been leaning heavily on the "intra-governmental debt", i.e. smoke and mirrors. OTOH you can point out that Bush the Lesser came into office with a surplus and promptly threw it away, and that was BEFORE 9/11, and also that Presidents have much less to say about such issues than Congress, and therefore it would make much more sense to compare national debt levels based on who controlled the Congress when it made the laws that resulted in such fiscal imprudence.

[The Magistrate]

13. Not Quite So Correct As He Thinks He Is, Sir

First, he understates the base-line: it was closer to ten and three-quarters trillions at the start of President Obama's term.

Second, the breakdown of yearly increase is known, and makes hash of his straight-line projection: in October of 2010, the Treasury announced the total debt was about thirteen and three quarters trillions, and so the accumulation of debt over the last year is running at a slower pace than it did in the two previous years. Given the facts of job growth and increased revenues, relative to the start of the President's term, this is unsurprising (though these gains are far from satisfactory, they are real).

Interestingly, intra-government debt has not risen much under President Obama, still running about four trillions today, as it did when he was sworn in. Intra- government debt about doubled during the late Bush regime, running about two and a quarter trillions when they were ushered into power.

[bemildred]

15. Well, I'm going by a cursory look at the Wikileaks page referenced.

And I take it as given that we are not talking about a well-rounded picture of how our finances got here.
But yeah, he is just spreading a meme that came from somewheres else, and he is no math nerd.
To be honest, I am not that enthusiastic about wasting time trying to reach agreement with somebody who clearly prefers to argue.
:hi:

[The Magistrate]

17. Here Is The Horse's Mouth For The Figures, Sir....

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

[Viking12]

18. Thank you, Sir, for the link to that fine website.

It will most certainly come in handy in future discussions.

[bemildred]

19. Thank you Sir, I can see that could come in handy.

I put in 1/1/2002 to 1/1/2010, which I take to be the Bush budget years, and I get:
----------------Public------------------Intra-gov't-------------Total---------------
12/31/2001 3,394,398,958,213.60 2,549,039,605,222.53 5,943,438,563,436.13

and

12/31/2009 7,811,008,785,487.30 4,500,340,892,024.73 12,311,349,677,512.03

----------------230% increase-----------176%--------------------207%-----------------

[The Magistrate]

20. Fiscal And Calender Years Are Different, Sir

Try October 1, 2001 to October 1, 2009 for the strictly Bush figures....

To get a yearly total, run October 1 year x to October 1 year y, where y is the year you want a total for.

[bemildred]

22. I know Sir, worked in defense.

In this context, being a true math nerd, I don't care about the extra digits.

[The Magistrate]

24. Coals To Newcastle, Then, Sir: My Apologies

I agree the shift of a quarter front and back does not really change the picture much. The important point to get across, though, is that the 'first year' of President Obama really is the last year of the Bush regime financially, which is something a great many people are not aware of, and some others are aware of and deliberately lie about.

[bemildred]

26. It is always my pleasure to talk to you Sir, and I would hope vice versa.

That is an important point, however I think the one made elsewhere that Presidents do not make budgets or deficits is the most important one in all such discussions, because it makes them irrelevant.

[The Magistrate]

32. Thank You, My Friend

But whether they actually are responsible or no, they get the credit or take the blame, just as once the Son of Heaven was held responsible for seasons of drought or seasons of timely rain. When the job amounts to personifying the nation in the eyes of its people, that sort of thing is what you sign on for....

[bemildred]

34. Yes, they do Sir, but it does not do much to fix our deficit.

He is the lightning rod, and he did sign up for the job.

[The Magistrate]

35. Fixing the Deficit Will Require Raising Taxes, Sir

It will require putting people back to work, and recognizing war is a luxury item we can no longer afford....

[bemildred]

36. Indeed Sir. Bullshit will only take you so far.

In the end, you have to have revenue, if you want to run it like a business; and you have to put your money where it does something constructive.

[The Magistrate]

38. Hell, Sir: If This was a Business, the Company President Would Have Fired Congress....

Not that that should be taken as a suggestion, of course....

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

[bemildred]

39. Government is not a business, it is nothing of the sort.

In fact real businesses get quite outraged if they have to compete with government agencies because they are not up to it. Hence "privatization".

[bemildred]

37. FWIW Sir ...

I tend to favor high taxation as a measure to prevent accumulation of wealth beyond a healthy reward to people who thenselves worked hard, so I don't usually think in terms of balancing the budget that way. I tend to think of balanced budgets as the result of a robust economy, and that it is futile to sabotage the economy in hopes of balancing the budget.

[The Magistrate]

40. We Are In Full Agreement There, Sir

Higher rates on higher incomes do tend to drive the instinct for evasion towards productive investment rather than blatant usury and outright gambling.

Put bluntly I do not see much point to balancing a government's budget, though the debt owed should be kept over time in reasonable proportion to the sum of economic activity. Government debt is capital, highly liquid capital, and seems necessary to the function of the system. People who compare the finances of a sovereign power to those of a family of wage-slaves simply announce they have nothing useful to say, owing to their profound ignorance of the topic.

[bemildred]

42. Quite right, Sir:

"Higher rates on higher incomes do tend to drive the instinct for evasion towards productive investment rather than blatant usury and outright gambling."

And that also has a great deal to do with the hankering to keep wages low so as to keep the money for oneself.

[ThatPoetGuy]

27. This is really the flaw/deception in the "math nerd"'s thinking.

He attributes a year of Clinton surpluses to Bush, and a year of Bush deficits to Obama. Bush's last budgets include stimulus spending, and the cousin is trying to fob that off where it doesn't belong.

Someone who respects facts and truth wouldn't credit Bush for a year of Clinton's budget-balancing and blame Obama for a year of Bush allowing his pals to loot the treasury.

[bemildred]

29. Yes.

Quite right.

[Drew Richards]

52. why not just send him this link and dare him to attempt to refute it? Throw it back at him

http://www.truth-out.org/three-charts-email-your-right-wing-brother-law/1314626142

[eppur_se_muova]

5. There's no basis for assuming the same increases in any subsequent year.

Drawing a line from two points may be valid in geometry, but not in statistics.

The increases in debt were due to specific, often unique (i.e. therefore not-to-be-repeated) outlays, such as the auto industry bailout and the bank bailout, or in Bu**sh**'s case, a couple of wars, off-budget, and a huge tax cut for the rich. Your cousin seems to be assuming that these events will be repeated on a regular, predicable basis, with similar costs each time (equally improbable). Short version: the notion of an "average" rate of increase is meaningless here.

Any ignoramus can draw a straight line from two data points, but only an ignoramus would believe it makes sense.

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" -- I am afraid your cousin has a long way to go to qualify as a true math gnurd.

Perhaps Twain's comments are the best:

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
- Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

[elleng]

6. Sending you a couple; haven't studied them. Have fun!

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/chart-bush-policies-dominant-cause-of-debt.php

[blm]

7. Considering the success of the TeabaGOP in stopping every significant economic policy fix submitted

by the Obama WH, your cousin should be ecstatic that Bush's economic policies have been protected the last 3 years and are still in place.

Funny thing about the Teabagging GOPs, they love to crow about how successful they've been stopping any policy that could CHANGE Bush's policies, but, have no problem with blaming the Dems for the crap RESULTS brought about by their continuing protection of Bush's economic policies.

They really DO love to have it both ways ----- they are LIARS. Lying is ALL they've got.

[patrice]

8. I don't see arguing against a comparison of the rates of increase, BUT - quantitative

analysis is so limited, NO CONTEXT; exclusively quantitative thinking ignores very specialized meanings that contain VAST un-defined assumptions. Not that all analyses don't contain more or less significant assumptions, but more that those assumptions/any assumptions should be at least recognized, in order to add meaning to what is being said.

Relative to that issue, the salient characteristics of the higher-rate of increase in deficit spending in the Obama administration might just have something to do with the specific traits of its context, which it would be ludicrous to assume are the same as the others. That makes this an issue of qualitative analysis vs. quantitative analysis.

If quantitative analysis were sufficient to identify validity, we'd be able to say that, compared to a bucket of sand filled slowly, 2 cups of sand that quickly filled a counter weight for, say, traction therapy, are more significant because of the higher rate of their instantiation, and NOT because of a quality those 2 cups have which is known as function. Or, conversely, that the bucket of sand is more significant simply because it is more, though it may have no function, or constructive effect, whatsoever. These e.g.s are to say that a quality known as function has nothing to do with a quantity known as rate of increase, or as amount, and/or vice versa, which is not true. A quality such as function may or may not have anything to do with a quantity, but either way, in identifying the meaning of quantity (or quality, for that matter) that ir-relevance should be made clear, otherwise meaning is not shared, because significant assumptions are not identified.

[Fearless]

9. Bush also ate through a budget surplus and a good economy. Obama didn't.

[beac]

10. Ask the "math geek" why he

is "projecting" into a hypothetical future second term. He does realize that you can't "project" facts, right? The graph is to counter the current Teabagger argument about the current debt, so not "inaccurate" at all.

I love math and facts too.

[patrice]

14. Me too!! Especially the ones that are left out! nt

[n2doc]

28. I think he should have some fun

Say "Given that we Democrats know that Obama plans to institute a communist Dictatorship in November 2012 (after canceling the elections), and will stay in office until he dies, his real debt (projecting for another 30 years or so of his expected lifespan) is 40 trillion dollars!"

[Viking12]

11. $4.2T is not "42%" of $5.8T, it is 72%

So the increase under Bush was 72% (2001-2008), while the increase to date under Obama is 42% (4.2/10, 2009-2011). A real "math geek" would know that. Moreover, one should use 2002-2009 for Bush and 2010 as the budget of the 1st year of any administration is largely determined by the previous admin.

[hfojvt]

21. Ha! Good job!

And it should go from 2002-2009 considering that FISCAL YEAR 2009 actually began on 1 Oct 2008, when Obama was not even elected, and having been elected was not sworn into office until late January 2009, when fiscal year 2009 had already been going for almost four months.

Further there were some seven million jobs lost between January 2008 and June 2009 (before Obama had much of a chance to do anything as President). Those job losses meant lost tax revenue and increased government expenses - mostly automatically as safety net policies kick in.

[Gormy Cuss]

33. +1

I knew that if I read all the replies before posting someone would have pointed this out.

[JVS]

48. Good catch.

[Cool Logic]

12. Actually, neither Reagan, Bush2 or Obama have ever spent a dime...

The Constitution calls for spending bills to proposed by the House and passed by the both the House and the Senate.

[TomClash]

16. Excellent comments in this thread

I'll add a lesser comment. Ask the math geek what specific programs (including specific dollar amounts) he would like to cut to make a meaningful dent in the deficit. It's simple subtraction so it shouldn't be too hard. See if you get anything close to an honest answer.

[Fresh_Start]

23. Bush increased the debt 72+%...not 42%.

4.2/5.8 = 72%

[Lucian]

31. I couldn't read it after he said "Here's the facts from the Wikipedia website."

[Tennessee Gal]

41. Economic circumstances they inherit from the previous administration

must be taken into consideration. W was handed a surplus and Obama was handed massive debt, failing banks, etc.

[Marnie]

43. Cousin was leaving out a huge fact.

Bush number one inherited a national debt run up by Reagan but a pretty good economy.

Obama inherited a huge national debt and the largest financial crises in 70 years along with two credit card wars.

That is huge and cousin is no erd he is a RepoCon and conveniently blind to reality.

[mysticalchick]

44. let it be known that I love you all!

LOVE IT! Thank you. Have posted relevant information to HER and we'll see what she says. She and I usually don't discuss politics given that we are on opposite ends of the spectrum but she's a hospital lab manager and apparently something in "Obamacare" caused their hospital to have to let people go and she is ten kinds of pissed. This is the first time she's EVER commented on a political post I put up. I know we have facts on our side (liberal bias and all that) so I thank you for giving me the real deal.

[beac]

45. And a bit of shame on all of us who assumed

"math nerd = man" as, OF COURSE, female rightwingers can distort numbers every bit as well as the males. And THAT'S a fact. :)

[The Magistrate]

46. The 'Obamacare Made People Fired' Thing is Probably No Sounder, Ma'am....

[JVS]

47. Generally one has to have a reason to project the same pace.

[Motown_Johnny]

49. .

The first big problem is that an increase from 10 to 21.2 is not 50%, it is 112%. Even so that is an invalid argument.



It takes time to change things. The deficit did increase under Clinton but only because it took years to fix what 12 years of Reagan/Bush had done.

Yes the debt is increasing under Obama but it is taking time to correct what 8 years of Shrub has done.


Projecting the debt to continue to increase at the same rate is not serious.

[librechik]

50. here's another graphic

http://chescodems.org/?p=3341

[coalition_unwilling]

51. This math nerd cousin of yours reminds me of Mark Twain's

witticism that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics."

If the public national debt went from $5.8 to $10 trillion (even accepting the Geek's ignorance of how fiscal policy and fiscal years actually work), that is way more than a 42% increase. He concedes that the debt grew by $4.2 trillion. In other words, the delta (using his flawed methodology) is $4.2 trillion.

Um, $4.2 trillion is a 72% delta from the $5.8 trillion starting point, not a 42% delta. So (again using your math nerd's flawed premises), that 72% delta translates into a 9% AVERAGE increase per year, not 5.25%.

As a word problem, it would be worded thus: if you began with $58 in your wallet and increased it to $100, what would the percentage change have been? Answer: 72% increase. 2nd question: if it took you 8 years to increase from $58 to $100, what was the average increase per year? Answer: 9% average increase.

I hope your cousin is not hired by any of NASA's manned space programs. :)

[Drew Richards]

53. strange my post fell under someone elses comment instead of the OP READ THIS...

http://www.truth-out.org/three-charts-email-your-right-wing-brother-law/1314626142