Okay this can't be true (about Congress' debt)

[holiday]

someone had this on their facebook status, and there is no way it can be true. Does anyone have any real info, or can lead me into the right direction with facts


"More debt was added in the last congress under the democrats, than in the last 200 years of congresses combined. That's right! I said the last 200 years combined"

[Xenotime]

1. Fake

[One_Life_To_Give]

2. Closer to 40%

The deficit during the last congress increased by roughly 40% of what the previous debt total had been.

[spanone]

3. during the bu$h* years, the wars were 'off the books'

[tridim]

4. Here's the original source, and yes it is a lie. A big GOP lie.

http://politifact.com/virginia/statements/2010/oct/27/eric-cantor/eric-cantor-tells-jon-stewart-us-spent-more-past-t/

[DainBramaged]

5. Republican propaganda

[holiday]

6. yeah I just looked on the net

looks like hannity said this, and then i seen other right wing blogs, but haven't seen any reputable sources

[BalancedGoat]

7. False, but not far off from the truth.

PolitiFact

There's a few variations of this "fact" floating around. Some use the spending, some use accumulated debt; some focus on the last 200 years, while other focus on the first 100 congresses.

Most versions are false. The one that is actually true is that 111th congress accumulated more debt than the first 100 combined.

McCarthy spokeswoman Erica Elliott forwarded us a Dec. 27, 2010, article from the conservative website CSNNews.com that looked at this question. The 111th Congress convened on Jan. 6, 2009, and exited on Dec. 22, 2010, a period in which the gross federal debt increased from $10.6 trillion to $13.9 trillion, a rise of $3.2 trillion. (There's an alternate measure of debt -- public debt -- that doesn't count the money that one part of the government lends to another part of the government, but the difference in the two figures is modest, so for simplicity, we'll stick with gross federal debt here.)

Meanwhile, CNSNews tracked down a document showing that the gross federal debt reached $3.22 trillion in September 1990, a date that came during the 101st Congress. Thus the focus on the first 100 Congresses.

The bottom line: If McCarthy had referred to debt rather than spending, he would have been correct. But he didn't, which is why the statement published in the Californian is incorrect.

Of course, the comparison is still misleading as it completely ignores inflation, economic growth, and population growth.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. 2 pics. 1st one shows deficit climbed steeply since 2000

and