A Dishonest Look at the Debt [White House Graphic]

On Tuesday, the White House posted a misleading graphic that took “blame Bush” to a whole new level. Besides using a time gimmick to make a false comparison, the chart (click for a larger view) has what must be intentional mis-truths spread throughout.

The bar graph uses a dishonest mechanism to make it appear as if Obama is not spending at a faster pace than G.W. Bush.

The White House shows eight years of Bush spending and makes a flawed comparison to just two years of Obama’s expenditures. To be an accurate side-by-side evaluation of the spending habits of the two presidents, annual spending amounts would need to be used.

What’s also important to note is the dishonest handling of war funding. The cost of the war in  Afghanistan is completely attributed to Bush even though Obama made the decision to go back into  Afghanistan when he called it the “right war” and pushed for the troop surge. Libya is completely missing from his spending estimates.

Where is the increase to 2 years of unemployment benefits? Obamacare? Increased hiring at the IRS? Those seem to be buried in the grey area somewhere.

This graphical mis-truth has another major flaw. While showing 8 years of “domestic and defense spending” for President Bush, the White House propaganda bar shows no spending whatsoever for the Obama administration.

Lastly, the farm bill was passed in 2008 by a Democrat congress over George Bush’s VETO. That spending should fall on Pelosi and Reid, not Bush. The farm bill was $300 billion so almost that entire part of the chart does not belong to Bush.

The only thing honest in this entire chart is that the federal government owes the Social Security trust trillions of dollars. If seniors want to know what happened to their checks, look at the diagonally shaded area at the bottom of the chart.