Source · Method · Honest-axis

Method panel

For: Federal deficit (shown with a misleading axis on purpose)

Source · Method · Honest-axis check

Source: https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget
Method: Annual federal budget deficit in trillions of dollars. Illustrative figures; replace with CBO/Treasury data for production. NOTE: seeded with a truncated y-axis to demonstrate the honest-axis check.
Uncertainty ? Uncertainty band A ±% range around the line, computed from how many observations the series has. Fewer data points → a wider band → treat the trend as lower-confidence. It is honesty about sample size, not a forecast.: With 6 observations, this chart shows a ±6% band. Treat it as moderate-confidence.

honest-axis.check

$ honest-axis check — Federal deficit
FAIL  2 issue(s) found
  ⚑ truncated-baseline: The y-axis is truncated above zero, so small differences look dramatic. Level charts should start at a justified baseline (zero).
  ⚑ clips-data: Part of the data falls outside the visible axis range and would be cut off.
  → suggested fix: yMin=0, yMax=3.4436
confidence: moderate (n=6)
uncertainty band: ±6% from sample size