Treasury Department Wins Award For Nation’s Ugliest Chart

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The actual news today, such as it is, concerns the federal deficit. A few weeks ago President Trump tweeted this:

The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo.

ZOMG! Trump is a fiscal genius! But today the Treasury released its deficit report for February:

Sad news. January’s modest surplus has been wiped out. The deficit in February was $192 billion. Just like last year. I don’t suppose Trump will be tweeting about that, will he? But he still could: His February deficit is $0.74 billion less than Obama’s in his first February. Is that worth a tweet?

But who cares about all this? It’s just money. The real motivation for this post is to mock the Bureau of the Fiscal Service for the op-art inspired bit of visual ugliness they use to report the deficit over time. Seriously, guys? What possible piece of software could they be using to produce this? Every time I look at it the world starts spinning.

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