The perplexing ways of PolitiFact

Yesterday PolitiFact published new version of one of its recent fact checks, changing its "Truth-O-Meter" rating from "Mostly True" to "Half True."

PolitiFact's action solidifies the charge that it rules arbitrarily and subjectively.

The original ruling on a description by the Obama campaign of Paul Ryan's plan for Medicare probably already downplayed a key misleading aspect of the original ad.  How does one make an accurate charge about "the" Ryan plan while talking about a version of his plan that has been updated?  If the relevant features of the plan changed (they did), then the statement misleads in the absence of qualifying language.  And it misleads in a way that may give the audience a picture that is the opposite of the accurate picture--that's approximately how PolitiFact defines its "Half True" rating.

PolitiFact does usually follow a good policy when it revises a story:  It keeps an archived version of the old story.  Since I have researched PolitiFact's process of justifying its "False" and "Pants on Fire" ratings, I was curious as to how PolitiFact changed the wording of its concluding paragraph to support the altered ruling.

The original version:

The Obama ad would have been more accurate if it had specified that it was referring to a previous Ryan plan for Medicare rather than the current one. We simply don’t have enough details to know how much extra money seniors might have to pay under the current Ryan plan. Still, the Obama campaign gave itself some wiggle room by saying that the plan "could" raise out-of-pocket costs by more than $6,000. On balance, we rate the statement Mostly True.

The revised version:

The Obama ad would have been more accurate if it had specified that it was referring to a previous Ryan plan for Medicare rather than the current one. We simply don’t have enough details to know how much extra money seniors might have to pay under the current Ryan plan. Still, the Obama campaign gave itself some wiggle room by saying that the plan "could" raise out-of-pocket costs by more than $6,000. On balance, we rate the statement Half True.

The summaries differ by one word.  "Mostly True" changes to "Half True" for the updated version of the story.

For the sake of clarity, is there any part of the story that provides a better opportunity to explain the precise justification for a "Truth-O-Meter" ruling than the summary portion of the story?

It's features like this that make PolitiFact's "Star Chamber" decisions look and smell exactly like subjective opinion.

Grading PolitiFact: Stephanie Cutter and the case of the missing fact check

It gets a little tiresome seeing PolitiFact repeatedly engage in partial reporting on its stories.  The following may represent the supreme example.

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor


Analysis

PolitiFact sets the stage:

The Republican response to attacks on the Ryan plan has been to attack back, saying President Barack Obama has cut "$700 billion" out of Medicare. And the Democratic response to that: Well, Paul Ryan cuts that amount, too!

PolitiFact selects the claim to check:

"You know, I heard Mitt Romney deride the $700 billion cuts in Medicare that the president achieved through health care reform," Cutter said. "You know what those cuts are? It’s taking subsidies away from insurance companies, taking rebates away from prescription drug company. Is that what Mitt Romney wants to protect? And interestingly enough Paul Ryan protected those cuts in his budget."

PolitiFact avows that it will focus on "whether Cutter is correct that Ryan relies on those same reductions in his budget."

PolitiFact uses the next nine grafs to outline the nature of the $700 billion reduction in Medicare expenditures projected by the CBO.

PolitiFact's source, a CBO report, communicates the nature of the reduction a bit more clearly than does PolitiFact (yellow highlights added):

Changes to Payment Rates in Medicare
In February 2011, CBO estimated that the permanent reductions in the annual updates to Medicare’s payment rates for most services in the fee-for-service sector (other than physicians’ services) and the new mechanism for setting payment rates in the Medicare Advantage program will reduce Medicare outlays by $507 billion during the 2012–2021 period. That figure excludes interactions between those provisions and others—namely, the effects of the changes in the fee-for-service portion of Medicare on payments to Medicare Advantage plans and the effects of changes in both the fee-for-service portion of the program and in the Medicare Advantage program on collections of premiums for Part B (Supplementary Medical Insurance).

The bulk of the reduction, then, occurs as the result of the two reductions the CBO identifies.  Therefore, we should expect to see both of those features in the Ryan budget plan at minimum to rate Cutter's statement true.

Having more-or-less identified the nature of the projected Medicare savings, PolitiFact proceeds to the next phase of its fact check:

Now onto [sic] our second question: Does Ryan’s budget keep the reductions in Medicare spending? The short answer is yes.

Here’s what Ryan said in an interview with George Stephanopolous of ABC News in June, before his selection as Romney’s running mate:

Stephanopoulos: "You know, several independent fact-checkers have taken a look at that claim, the $500 billion in Medicare cuts, and said that it's misleading. And in fact, by that accounting, your budget, your own budget, which Gov. Romney has endorsed, would also have $500 billion in Medicare cuts.

Ryan: "Well, our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare. ..." (Read the full exchange.)

Do we know from that exchange that the cost reductions come from the same source?  I don't see how, and I invite any reader who sees it to explain it with a comment below.

Slate's Dave Weigel claimed that Ryan uses the same cap on Medicare spending as Obama.  But his explanation does not appear to help PolitiFact's argument.

Weigel (bold emphasis added):

Remember, Obamacare is supposed to save $700 billion by capping the rise in Medicare spending from GDP growth plus 0.5 percent. The Ryan budgets in 2012 and 2013 don’t alter Medicare for anyone entering it before 2022—a buffer that lets current retirees breathe easy. After 2022, it turns all of Medicare into a premium support plan like Medicare Advantage. At that point, “an annual competitive bidding process” is supposed to push providers to provide lower rates. “The per capita cost of this reformed program for seniors reaching eligibility after 2023,” explains Ryan in his budget guide, “could not exceed nominal GDP growth plus 0.5 percent.” So, if it works, it’s got the exact same Medicare cap as the Obama plan.

Weigel is talking about two different means of obtaining the same future rate of growth on Medicare spending.

As for PolitiFact, it's sticking with Paul Ryan's supposed confession:

So Ryan has confirmed his budget includes the Medicare savings.

"The" Medicare savings?  The same exact ones from the ACA and not just the future rate of growth pegged at the same percentage?  How do we know that?  Where is the fact check?

PolitiFact:

Still, Ryan himself said his plan did include the reductions in future spending that were part of the federal health care law.

Sorry, but that's not a fact check and it's very misleading.  PolitiFact is seizing on an ambiguity from Ryan and insisting that it perfectly dovetails with Cutter's claim.  A real fact check would verify from the text of Ryan's budget that the savings have the same origin as those projected by the CBO for the health care reform law.  This fact check doesn't do that at all.  Ryan's budget is neither listed among the sources on the sidebar nor linked in the text of the story.

Another of PolitiFact's sources helps confirm that PolitiFact simply blew this fact check. The CBO did attempt to score Ryan's budget proposal. The CBO did a baseline scenario using the assumption that the health care reform bill would remain in effect:

The baseline scenario incorporates policies restraining Medicare spending that are embedded in current law. Such policies include the sustainable growth rate mechanism, which determines the payment rates for physicians; payments to other providers in the fee-for-service portion of Medicare that would grow more slowly over roughly the next two decades than the cost of their inputs; and the  Independent Payment Advisory Board (established by the Affordable Care Act), which is required to make changes to the Medicare program to reduce spending if the growth in such spending is projected to exceed certain targets.

And the CBO created an alternate scenario where Medicare savings were much less:

The alternative fiscal scenario incorporates less restraint on Medicare spending.  Specifically, payments for physicians would not be reduced as they would be under the sustainable growth rate mechanism, and payments to other providers  would grow more rapidly than under the baseline scenario after roughly the next decade. The remaining restraints on Medicare spending could also have the potential consequences noted for the baseline scenario, but presumably to a much lesser extent because the restraints would be much less tight.

If the cost reductions are "protected" in the Ryan budget, then why does the CBO run an alternative scenario where the supposed protected cost reductions do not occur?

By all appearances, the PolitiFact team mailed it in on this fact check.  The evidence strongly suggests that the Ryan budget plan only relies on savings through ObamaCare to the extent that the CBO assumes that existing law will remain in effect--its standard procedure--while projecting the effects of Ryan's budget.

Cutter gets a "True" for that?


The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Bill Adair:  F

Seriously:  Where's the fact check?


Afters:

Here's one of those statements from the CBO that seems to have a tough time finding its way into PolitiFact's fact checks (bold emphasis added):

CBO’s cost estimate for the legislation noted that it will put into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time. The combination of those policies, prior law regarding payment rates for physicians’ services in Medicare, and other information has led CBO to project that the growth rate of Medicare spending (per beneficiary, adjusted for overall inflation) will drop from about 4 percent per year, which it has averaged for the past two decades, to about 2 percent per year on average for the next two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction can be achieved through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or will instead reduce access to care or the quality of care (relative to the situation under prior law). Also, the legislation includes a provision that makes it likely that exchange subsidies will grow at a slower rate after 2018, so the shares of income that enrollees have to pay will increase more rapidly at that point, and the shares of the premiums that the subsidies cover will decline.

Grading PolitiFact: Obama and unlisted loopholes

Words matter -- We pay close attention to the specific wording of a claim. Is it a precise statement? Does it contain mitigating words or phrases?
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan: writer, researcher
Martha M. Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

PolitiFact, we are told, pays close attention to the specific wording of political claims.

We'll see.  Already in the clipped image above one can note semantic drifts between "refuse" and "won't" along with "willing to close" and "want to repeal."

To be sure, the paraphrases can work if one keeps context carefully in mind.  Let's fix the context carefully in mind:

Now, the proponents of this budget will tell us we have to make all these draconian cuts because our deficit is so large; this is an existential crisis, we have to think about future generations, so on and so on.  And that argument might have a shred of credibility were it not for their proposal to also spend $4.6 trillion over the next decade on lower tax rates.

We’re told that these tax cuts will supposedly be paid for by closing loopholes and eliminating wasteful deductions.  But the Republicans in Congress refuse to list a single tax loophole they are willing to close.  Not one.  And by the way, there is no way to get even close to $4.6 trillion in savings without dramatically reducing all kinds of tax breaks that go to middle-class families -- tax breaks for health care, tax breaks for retirement, tax breaks for homeownership.

President Obama is saying that the Ryan budget "spends" $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates, and the way the lower tax rates will "supposedly be paid for" is via closing tax loopholes and eliminating deductions to the tune of $4.6 trillion.

Obama is engaging in doublespeak.  If the budget pays for the $4.6 trillion by increasing taxes by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions then it isn't "spending" $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates. There are honest and forthright ways to express skepticism that the Ryan proposal remains neutral on income tax revenue.  Obama did not use one of them.

PolitiFact for its part glosses over the doublespeak to focus on the claim that "Republicans in Congress refuse to list a single tax loophole they are willing to close."

PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):

In principle, it’s certainly possible to eliminate exemptions and lower tax rates while keeping tax revenues the same. It’s usually called "broadening the base", and it was part of the 2010 Simpson Bowles budget commission that Obama has praised, though he’s stopped short of endorsing the bipartisan commission’s recommendations.

The point Obama made, though, was that the House Republicans haven’t said which exemptions they would end. Some of the largest exemptions are the most popular, such as tax exemptions on employer-provided health insurance, home mortgage interest and charitable donations, as well as special lower tax rates for income from investments, such as capital gains and dividends.

Note the portion receiving bold emphasis.  Once again, PolitiFact has applied semantic distortion.  Obama did not simply say that House Republicans haven't said which exemptions they would end.  He said they refused to name so much as one exemption they were even willing to cut.

We're supposed to believe that PolitiFact pays close attention to the wording of a claim.

PolitiFact's semantic presto chango in this case potentially makes the difference between "True" and "False."

The new Ryan budget does not list any single example of a tax loophole it would close ("True").  On the other hand, the budget's plan to close tax loopholes logically implies that it would close no less than one tax loophole.  Amplifying that point, one could say of the Ryan budget that it does not name a single loophole it would leave intact.

PolitiFact:

Committee staff pointed us to this statement on the House Budget Committee website:

"This budget calls for lowering tax rates and broadening the tax base. All corners of the tax code should be on the table. The House Ways and Means Committee, led by Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan, has held dozens of hearings over the past year examining how best to simplify the tax code while maximizing economic growth."

That doesn't entirely let House Republicans off the hook, though.

If it lets Republicans off the hook at all in any way then why does PolitiFact give Obama a "True" rating?

Alternatively, do Republicans refuse to name a single tax loophole they're willing to cut?


PolitiFact quoted part of a Fox News Sunday interview of Ryan.  Interviewer Chris Wallace asked Ryan for specifics.  Ryan deferred to the Ways and Means Committee, but Wallace pressed further:

PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):

Wallace: "All right. I understand, this is not your committee, it's the Ways and Means Committee. Can you tell me any (tax exemptions) that you're willing to say, do away with it?"

Ryan: "What I would say on doing away with it, is who would we do away with it for. And what we're saying is the people who disproportionately use those, it's the top two tax rate payers use almost of those tax expenditures. We would limit these things to those higher income earners."

Wallace: "Even things like the deduction for health insurance and pensions and home mortgage?"

Ryan: "Yes, right. Instead of giving these write-offs to the people in the top tax bracket, take those tax shelters away. For every dollar that's parked in the tax shelter is taxed at zero. Take away the tax shelter, subject all of their income to taxation, you get more revenue, and we can lower everybody's tax rate in return. So, we're saying let's limit these kinds of deductions to the higher-income earners so that everybody can enjoy lower, flatter tax rates in return.

Ryan affirmed that the plan targets specific items like the deduction for health insurance and pensions along with the home mortgage deduction.

PolitiFact apparently doesn't interpret Ryan as effectively naming three separate loopholes or tax shelters.  The fact check offers no additional comment on Ryan's response and moves straight to its conclusion:

Obama said, "Republicans in Congress refuse to list a single tax loophole they are willing to close." House Republicans have said they want to handle tax changes through the Ways and Means Committee, and the plan’s top proponent, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, said he would limit deductions and exemptions for people who report higher incomes.

But without more details on eliminating exemptions, it’s impossible to know if the tax plan will substantially reduce tax revenues or not. It’s also not possible to know what all the implications are for taxpayers. We rate Obama’s statement True.

PolitiFact's conclusion ignores the facts and focuses on an irrelevancy.

The fact is that the Ryan plan intentionally allows the House Ways and Means Committee to exercise its discretion in achieving the budgetary goals.  PolitiFact says it doesn't get Republicans off the hook entirely, apparently meaning it doesn't get them off the hook at all.  Ryan affirms three specific loopholes and deductions he's willing to see eliminated.  But those don't count and PolitiFact does not explain why.  Then we're supposed to believe it is relevant to Obama's claim that the lack of detail makes it hard to tell whether the plan would substantially reduce revenues or not.  PolitiFact should have noticed the ease with which Obama scored the loss of revenue:  $4.6 trillion using the assumption that Republicans would cut no loopholes or deductions at all.

Obama claimed Republicans refused to name any tax deductions or loopholes they are willing to make.  PolitiFact quoted Ryan offering three exceptions but somehow failed to notice.

PolitiFact twisted Obama's claim into something like "Republicans haven't made a concrete proposal about what deductions and loopholes they would eliminate."  That's true, but it isn't what Obama said.  And what Obama said leaves out gobs of critical context even aside from its literal falsehood,.


The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Martha M. Hamilton:  F

I'm amazed that a team effort can produce results this horrifyingly awful.  Obama's literal claim was simply false if Ryan is counted as naming three specific examples by answering the interview question.  PolitiFact offered no reason for dismissing the legitimacy of the examples. 

Obama's underlying argument is effectively irrelevant if PolitiFact identified it correctly via the creative paraphrase.

The fact check consists mainly of semantic games and incoherent reasoning. 

These are journalists reporting badly.



Correction/Clarification 4/10/2012:  "Fact checkers" section had only Angie Drobnic Holan listed with her "F" grade.  Altered that section to its customary appearance with all contributors listed along with their roles. Also on 4/10 eliminated one of two uses of the word "discretion" in the same sentence.
Clarification 4/11/2012:  Changed "Republicans" to "lower tax rates" to make sense of a sentence in the paragraph following the quotation of Obama's remarks.

Third party payment by any other name still smells as stinky

Rep. Paul Ryan explains the basic problem with our current Medicare system (third party payment) without naming it:



Many Republicans are concerned about the difficulty of messaging for Ryan's approach. People like the idea of paying for other people's health care, especially when they can do it with other people's money.

The Republicans are gambling that people will wake up to the truth before we drive off the cliff.


Hat tip to Hot Air.

Grading PolitiFact (Wisconsin): Paul Ryan and the Madison riots

 The issue:

The fact checkers:

James B. Nelson:  writer, researcher
Greg Borowski:  editor

Analysis:

Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program on Feb. 17 and weighed in on the Wisconsin governor's run-in with the state's union workers:

"It's not asking a lot, it's still about half of what private sector pensions do and health care packages do. So he's [the Governor is] basically saying, I want you public workers to pay half of what our private sector counterparts and he's getting riots -- it's like Cairo has moved to Madison these days," Rep. Ryan told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Here' an example of how PolitiFact editors choose their stories:

Now that warrants a news flash: Riots?

That conjures images of tear gas, broken windows, cracked heads. Is that really happening?

That's how the fact check proceeds.  It is assumed that Ryan was saying that the Madison protests were violent, so the fact check involves trying to find examples of violent behavior.

We get a number of contrasts to violent antiwar protests from the American 1960s.

We get highlighting of the fact that there is little tension between the police and Wisconsin protesters (perhaps the police are unionized?).

Finally, PolitiFact asked for a response from Ryan's office:

Puzzled, we called Ryan’s office and asked what he was referring to in his comments about riots and his comparison of a week of Madison protests with 18 days that led to the resignation of the president of Egypt.

Ryan’s response: "It was an inaccurate comparison."

Ryan's response was perhaps too deferential.  Not everyone thought the comparison was inapt, as quite a few signs in the Madison crowd made a direct comparison between Governor Walker and (former) Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.  But it's pretty easy to figure out why Ryan would back away from the comparison.  More on that after a little video showing the riot in Cairo:



That's right, ladies and gentlemen.  The Egyptian protesters were by and large peaceful.  The scenes depicting violent behavior come from the riot control folks (police and the like).

Given that Ryan invoked the comparison with Cairo in the immediate context, what is the justification for taking "riot" as literally meaning violent behavior?

There apparently is no such justification, other than taking the literal definition of the word and trying to make Ryan wear it regardless of the context.  The similarity to Cairo is sufficient for Ryan to make the comparison.  Big crowds turned out to protest the actions of the government (peacefully in both cases).  The state hasn't yet used teargas to disperse the crowds, nor have government supporters instigated violent clashes with protesters as happened in Egypt.

Given the explicit comparison to massive protests in Egypt, Ryan's comment ought to have been taken as hyperbole (exaggeration for emphasis) and politically inadvisable because the Wisconsin protesters deliberately tried to invoke the comparison themselves between Walker and Egypt's Mubarak.

The Egyptian protesters were notably repressed.  The Madison protesters suffered no comparable harm.

This item is classic "gotcha" journalism.



The grades:

James B. Nelson:  F
Greg Borowski:  F