I’m not a Mathematician, Statistician or Economist and I’ve never played one on TV. That being said, I like numbers. Always have. Numbers are important. It would be hard to build anything without numbers. Numbers allow you to convey exact information. Instead of saying, “I have a bunch of cats”, you can say, “I have four cats”.
But as exacting as numbers are, they can be used to give totally true, but very misleading information. Always be leery of data that uses percentages or terms like majority, doubled and tripled. If 501 out of 1000 people polled agree with your question, that’s a majority.
The best example I have seen of using percentages to mislead was in the early 70’s. A Gun Control advocacy group floated the statistic that in one year, 100% of the murders in a New England State were committed with handguns. It was a totally true fact. But it loses most of its weight when you find out that there was only one murder that year and yes, it was committed with a handgun. If the following year there were two handgun murders, you could truly say that the number of handgun murders doubled from the previous year.
The reason I bring this up is the other day I saw a Liberal webpost listing the multiple sins of President Reagan. Number six was he tripled the National Debt in eight years. Got me wondering. After a quick trip to the Treasury Department Website, I was able to determine that during Reagan’s eight years, the National Debt went from $0.99 trillion to $2.60 trillion, an increase of 189%. Not quite tripling (200%) but if you round off, yes it tripled. So, it’s a true statement.
But disregard the labeling. In eight years under Reagan, the debt increased to $2.6 trillion. When Obama was elected, the National Debt sat just under $10 trillion. In the first six years of the Obama Administration, it has increased to $17.8 trillion. If this yearly rate of increase continues, by 2016 it will have increased by $11.5 trillion for a total debt of $21.6 trillion. Adjusted for inflation in 2014 dollars, Reagan’s eight year debt increase of $1.6 trillion would be $3.23 trillion today compared to Obama’s six year $7.8 trillion increase.
If the debt increase in the last two years of Obama’s term is only 6% instead of the projected 9%, it will still have doubled the National Debt in eight years.
Which is worse: Tripling the National Debt from $0.99 trillion to $2.6 trillion or doubling the National Debt from $10.0 trillion to $21.5 trillion?
I like numbers.