House of Cuts, the Obama White House graphic on the 2014 House budget

House of Cuts is an April 10, 2014 White House infographic attacking the House Republican budget. It lists tax, Medicare, program, and health-coverage effects, many introduced with "could," and cites "White House data."

What the graphic prints

A long vertical image built for sharing. A night photograph of the Capitol sits behind the headline, and the rest is a stack of panels: arrows for taxes, a state map for seniors' drug costs, a list of program numbers, a health-coverage panel, and a closing call to pass it on. An excerpt:

HOUSE of CUTS

THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN BUDGET:

STACKING THE DECK AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS, ONE CUT AT A TIME.

[...]

CUTS TAXES for MILLIONAIRES by an average of $87,000 or more

AND

RAISES TAXES for MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES WITH KIDS by an average of at least $2,000

[...]

If funding for domestic discretionary priorities was cut across the board by 15 percent this year:

1,167,000 People could lose access to job training and employment services

616,000 Students could lose Pell Grants to help pay for college

[...]

IF YOU AGREE THIS ISN'T FAIR, PASS IT ON.

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

SOURCE: WHITE HOUSE DATA

WH.GOV #HouseOfCuts

Who issued it

The White House under President Obama, as one of its "Share-Worthy" infographics, posted April 10, 2014. The copy the archive uses is on the National Archives' preserved Obama White House website. The source is openly identified, and the image is a public-domain federal work.

How to read it

This is the executive branch arguing against the House Republican budget, on the government's own website. A President is free to make that argument, and the presidency is a political office as well as an administrative one. The reader should still see it for what it is: advocacy, paid for and published by the government, in a dispute where the government is one of the parties.

The archive files it under card stacking and fear appeal, and the reasons are in the text. Many of the largest numbers rest on a scenario: "If funding ... was cut across the board by 15 percent." The verbs that follow are "could lose" and "could be cut off." The tax figures are averages. The only source line is "White House data," with one outside group named for a single SNAP figure. None of that makes the claims false. It means a reader cannot check most of them from the graphic, and the graphic does not ask him to. It asks him to share.

A fair test is to imagine the same panel from an administration of the other party, about a budget from this one, with the same "could" and the same sourcing. It would deserve the same reading. This site applies it both ways; see the 2024 Biden White House card and the 2025 DHS poster.