Now that we’re into an election year it’s time to unleash the stupid charts.
What is a stupid chart? Oh, the kind of thing you’ll find your Facebook friends posting for or against this party or that party. Charts that claim to “prove” something, but cannot stand up to scrutiny.
Consider the following:
Obviously, military spending takes up the majority of that pie, and therefore Republicans are stupid idiots for blaming foodstamps, right?
Not really.
There are a couple of serious problems with this chart and the conclusion it reaches. First of all, there is no indication of what the chart is actually showing. Here is the original chart with accurate labels and without the political commentary:
Note the second sentence of the intro:
“The discretionary budget, which is only part of total federal spending…”
This chart is not of total spending. Indeed, where is Social Security? Where is Medicare? Where is the Interest on the Debt? Surely these items would make up a significant part of the budget, but they are nowhere to be found.
Why did the person who added the political commentary use discretionary spending and not total spending? Why indeed. Could it be that total spending would not support the conclusion they wanted to draw?
Here is what Total Spending looks like:
Oh look, that big scary 57% spending on military has changed colors and is down to just 16%, while Social Security, Unemployment, and Medicare now make up more than 50%.
Does that change anything?
Also consider the assertion that Republicans blame the food stamp program for the deficit. I’ve heard that program blamed for creating dependence, for lowering people’s work ethic, for creating voters who can be depended on to vote Democrat, but for the deficit?
Another thing, why a pie chart? What does the “percentage” of the budget tell us about the usefulness of the spending? Almost nothing.
It is a fallacy to imagine the budget as a big pie of money to be sliced up like dessert.
The question shouldn’t be whether military spending (or any other spending) should be 16 or 28 or 59 percent, the questions are what is the money being spent on? is it needed? is it effective? what are the alternatives?
But no one seems to want to ask those questions, least of all the makers of stupid charts.
The makers of stupid charts are counting on confirmation bias, the tendency of viewers to like the message being presented and to quickly assume that it is true… just because they like it.
It’s not just the charts that are stupid.
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