10 Popular Political Photo Memes That Are Totally Bogus
1. Who Increased the Debt?
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and moveon.org popularized this photo meme that purports to show that, over the past five presidential administrations, Republican presidents are far worse than Democrats when it comes to the national debt.
Politifact investigated the photo meme's statistical claims in May 2011, giving it their "pants on fire" rating, which is the worst rating a claim can get on accuracy.
"It made a major calculation error that dramatically skewed the debt increase away from Obama and toward George W. Bush. It glossed over significant variations in time served in office. It cherry-picked the measurement that was favorable to its cause," stated Politifact.
"And it is contradicted by statistics for GDP-adjusted debt, which show Obama to be the most, rather than the least, debt-creating president of the last five."
