General Discussion

Roland99

(53,342 posts) Tue Apr 15, 2014, 08:40 PM Apr 2014

A tale of two graphs

MarketWatch:

(source attributed to The White House)

CNN:

(source attributed to National Priorities Project)

Some non-negligible differences between the two.

interesting....

Ah...missed this:

Note: The National Priorities Project's calculations exclude payroll taxes. Payroll taxes fully pay for Social Security benefits. But they only cover a portion of Medicare's expenses -- the remainder is covered by general federal revenue and premiums

Not sure if the White House data does or doesn't.

2 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

A tale of two graphs (Original Post) Roland99 Apr 2014 OP

Both are about income tax; here are some explanations for both muriel_volestrangler Apr 2014 #1

I think this just highlights the issue with media and stats Roland99 Apr 2014 #2

muriel_volestrangler

(101,320 posts)

1. Both are about income tax; here are some explanations for both

Reply to Roland99 (Original post)

Tue Apr 15, 2014, 08:54 PM

Apr 2014

White House figures: http://www.whitehouse.gov/2013-taxreceipt (click on plus signs to expand categories, hover over them to get a budget function number - eg for net interest, it's 900)
National Priorities Project figures: http://nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2014/tax-day-2014/notes-sources/ (eg for interest, it's subfunctions: 901, 902, 903, 908, 909)

How 900 relates to the subfunctions must be explained somewhere else. Exercise for reader.

Roland99

(53,342 posts)

2. I think this just highlights the issue with media and stats

Reply to muriel_volestrangler (Reply #1)

Tue Apr 15, 2014, 08:59 PM

Apr 2014

Anything can be made to fit a specific meme or push an agenda slightly over another.

For example, every time I hear or read a stat about what % of America's wealth is owned by what % of the population, it's always different numbers.

The truth/actual numbers *should* be significant enough for anyone to see/hear and realize what's going on w/o fluff/sensationalism being added in.

Reply to this discussion