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Where the money goes: ProPublica provides details

Occasionally you don't need an image-driven graphic to convey a lot of data; sometimes a table of numbers alone can be quite illuminating. Here's a comparative table put together by ProPublica.org that shows how the House's version of the US stimulus bill stacks up against the Senate version (passed just moments ago). PP explains:
Some highlights: The House version would spend $60 billion more on education. The Senate version adds more than $100 billion for tax cuts to individuals and families. The House would spend more to upgrade the country’s electricity grid. The Senate would spend more on medical research.
The table's very clear and concise, but I do wish the numbers cited there were linked to the actual text of the proposed legislation (or, even better, some sort of graphic translation of it) so readers could see for themselves the exact details of each provision.

Meanwhile, there's also a treemap of the late-January House version (made with ManyEyes) over at ShovelWatch, the cooperative project from ProPublica, WNYC and the NPR show The Takeaway.

I'm hoping that someone at PP will soon update that as well, including a treemap of the bill's Senate version and providing graphics that compare 1) the proposed dollar amounts, 2) sector spending and 3) the timetables.

A girl can dream...
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  1. U-ManFebruary 10, 2009 at 9:56 PM

    Hi CWC,

    Our friends at the Takeaway have done a treemap of the Senate bill:
    http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/where-the-money-would-go-senate-plan

    Glad you enjoyed our chart.

    -Eric Umansky
    Senior Editor
    ProPublica

    ReplyDelete

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