The Fact Checker / Reporter

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The Fact Checker / Reporter helps the WebQuest team understand the facts behind the controversy. What do we know about the national debt, deficit, balanced budgets, and economic growth? Many opinions get shouted like the truth, but what do we know for certain? As the Fact Checker / Reporter you can develop a basic understanding, learn more or become an expert. Go as far as you can because this will help your team make the most informed answer to the Question and reach the highest levels on the Rubric.

The Basics

1. Your main job is to find out "the facts" about the budget, debt and surplus. Skim through the articles below. Read for meaning, not to understand every word and idea. Use the dictionary if you need to.

2. Write down or copy/paste an average of the three most important points from each article you read. Feel free to discuss them with your partners if they are available.
3. Be prepared to answer such questions as:
• How did the budget debt get so big?
• Which presidents were in charge when it happened?
• Is a big debt necessarily bad?

What's So Bad about the Budget Deficit?

by Scott McPherson, November 12, 2003

Historical Public Debt Outstanding - Annual 1950 - 1999

from the Bureau of the Public Debt

The National Debt is ...

from the National Debt Awareness Center

Learning More

Use the links below to get a deeper understanding of the current debate about plans for what to do with the budget surplus. How can we have a surplus as the debt increases? Find more facts, quotations, statistics and examples that you think are important.

Record US budget surplus achieved

from the BBC

Bush Pushes Tax Cut Plan

from ABC News

Bushes, Cheneys Reaped Tax Benefits

Published by the Associated Press

Greenspan asks Congress to hold off on tax cutting

a report from USA Today

Becoming an Expert

Now that you have a better understanding of this particular role, you can help your team more by pursuing additional questions that came up for you. Use the Hotlist of Links as a starting point. Consider some strategies provided by Jamie McKenzie in his article The Research Cycle.

Created May, 1996. Last revised February, 2005. Created by Tom March, tom at ozline dot com Applications Design Team/Wired Learning