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Oh Noes! Obama will raise your taxes!* | 37 comments
That graphic seems too busy and confusing to me. (0.00 / 0)
I've seen it in several places. I believe it violates several principles of graphic design and can be easily misread.

The same data could be presented more crisply, with less confusion, I suspect.

Get on it n/t (4.00 / 1)

[ Parent | ]
Here's a stab: (4.00 / 2)

Tax Savings: Obama v. McCain
[ Parent | ]
That should be titled 'Tax Saving as Percent of Income' (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent | ]
To really want to make the point -- (4.00 / 1)
Make the green Republican red, and the blue a more Democratic blue.

And to the left of the Y-axis, above the X-axis, put "Tax cuts," with an arrow pointing up above it, and below the X-axis, put "Tax increases" with an arrow pointing down below it.

And change the income categories to percentiles of Americans, i.e. "0 to 16th percentile ($0-18,981)" and "99th to 99.9th percentile (603)".  If possible, do this for every ten percent up to 90, to underline the fact that this is the vast majority of people, not the 44-55% that the current number of bars suggests.  Then 95%, then 98%, then 99%, then 99.9%.

(Granted, this might need a bit more research to get all the data...)

[ Parent | ]
One point that jumped out at me (4.00 / 2)
in reformatting this is: McCain doesn't recover ANY of the money he gives away. He relies on discredited "Cut tax rates and revenues will grow" magic beans, which have piled up all the debt for our grandkids.

If you can just deficit-spend to win votes, why not hand out still more to everyone?

(BTW: I avoided 'Red-Blue' because 'Red' is overloaded with 'Red Ink = Loss' overtones. It pains me to be unfair to Republicans.)

[ Parent | ]
Viscera (4.00 / 1)
This attempt, while noble, doesn't hit me like the Post version. My only real issue with their graph is that the note about the bottom three brackets being 60% of taxpayers should be much more prominent.

I see your point about the potential for misreading, but it's crystal clear whose taxes are going up under Obama's plan. Not mine.

[ Parent | ]
The orignal has more information than mine (4.00 / 1)
And if the reader wants a summary of major policy differences, it can be closely read to get more information.

My dissatisfaction with it is for a more general audience. If the story it wants to tell is, "Here's how it affects YOU," I think it's too busy.

But YMMV.

[ Parent | ]
Incidentally (0.00 / 0)
I remember like a bell Dan Rather's famous line describing Reagan's landslide in 1980. "It's starting to look like a suburban swimming pool." He said that because Reagan states were blue. But at some point the colors flipped, and that's good, because I think we're better off being blue.

[ Parent | ]
Colors are off (4.00 / 3)
for sure... in that they represent party rather than positive or negative tax impact. Not real neccessary to the understanding of the information.

If I had a bit more time I might try to remix it but I'm swamped.

Hope > Fear

[ Parent | ]
Oh Noes! Obama will raise your taxes!* | 37 comments
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