In article ,
John Schilling wrote:

Data is data -- please excuse my linguistic shorthand, which I believed
to be clear, in describing it.

No. Because your "linguistic shorthand" didn't just *describe* data, it
*excluded* data. Critically important data like what happened to the
budget when Congress changed hands.

That wasn't the description of the data; it was the data itself, which I
had available to me in the amount of time I was willing to spend on it.
You raise a good point that this might be obscuring some effect of the
party in control of congress.

It couldn't be a very strong effect, however, because even with the data
broken down by president, we have some where the dominant party in
Congress remained the same for the whole term. For example, under
Carter, both Senate and House were controlled by Democrats the entire
time, and in that time the debt (relative to GNP) decreased. Under the
first Bush, both Senate and House were again controlled by DEmocrats the
entire time, and in that time the debt (relative to GNP) increased.

So clearly, if there is any effect of what party controls Congress, it
must be a much weaker one than the effect of what party controls the
White House (which is a 100% correlation, at least in the last 30 years).

But by all means, please do dig up numbers broken down by Congressional
party, and see what it shows. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find at
least a weak correlation.

As that is precisely the data, and the only data, which could have
falsified your, "It's all the (Republican) President's fault!" thesis,
the fact that you felt it unworthy of consideration tells us exactly
how committed you are to honest debate here.

No need to get nasty. I presented the raw data that I found; I pointed
out my observations about it for readers too lazy to study the numbers
themselves. All are welcome to point out their own observations, too.
I haven't purposely engaged in any spin or rhetoric with regard to the
observed correlation. I'd be happy to hear any counter arguments, but
so far all I've gotten are nitpicking and attacks on my presentation.
This is to be expected, I suppose.

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