Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
&quot;For example, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that the deficit rose during the Clinton administration; Democrats are more likely to say that inflation rose under Reagan.&quot;<p>These are both really tricky questions, because the questions described are derivatives of derivatives!  The deficit is the time derivative of the debt; so it&#x27;s possible that someone is hearing &quot;did the debt rise during clinton&quot; (which would be true).  Likewise, inflation is the derivative of the value of money.  So someone might be hearing &quot;did things get more expensive over reagan&quot; (which would also be true).  The deficit&#x2F;debt one is really tricky since they both start with the letter D and even though I know the difference occasionally in conversation I switch the two.