Grading PolitiFact (Texas): Burying the underlying argument for Julián Castro

Context matters -- We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.

--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

 Or not.


The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Sue Owen:  writer, researcher
W. Gardner Selby:  writer
John Bridges:  editor


Analysis:

PolitiFact maintains a bad habit of applying its standards inconsistently.  This fact check of a statement by San Antonio mayor Julián Castro serves as an example of one common variety of PolitiFact's inconsistency.  Many raw facts have little significance when considered alone.  But often politicians will use an apparently true fact in constructing a fallacious or questionable argument.  PolitiFact's principles assure us that PolitiFact takes such factors into account (see epigraph above).  In practice, that often isn't the case.

On with the fact check:

Addressing the delegates assembled in Charlotte, N.C., Castro said that San Antonio residents recognize the value of investing in pre-Kindergarten and student college loans. "We're investing in young minds today to be competitive in the global economy tomorow [sic]," Castro said. "And it's paying off. Last year the Milken Institute ranked San Antonio as the nation's top-performing local economy."

PolitiFact Texas does "examine" the context after a fashion.  The quotation of Castro succinctly illustrates his point:  Investing in pre-K and student college loans paid off in that San Antonio's economy leads the nation in the Milken Institute rankings.

That's Castro's obvious point, and PolitiFact does enough fact checking to show that his point is highly suspect:

The San Antonio Express-News credited the city’s rise to reasons "including military base realignment, drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale and the growth of health care" in a Dec. 16, 2011, news story.

But military base realignment, producing shale oil and expanding the health care job sector are pretty much the same as "investing in young minds."  Aren't they?

PolitiFact:

Texas’ rise in the ranks, the Express-News wrote, came partly because of downturns in other parts of the country. The story quoted research economist James Gaines of Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center: "Our growth rate and advancement isn't all that wonderful. We've managed to stay flat or have very small positives. But because everybody has so many negatives, we look so much better."

But aren't those downturns in other parts of the country ultimately because of their failure to match San Antonio's investment in pre-K education and student loans?

PolitiFact provides no evidence in support of Castro's claimed cause-and-effect relationship.  Instead, we get a ruling based entirely on the raw claim about San Antonio's ranking which completely ignores Castro's underlying point:

San Antonio hasn’t just been holding steady in the economic downturn; it’s been gaining ground, even compared to other Texas cities. Castro’s statement rates True.

If the rest of the nation wants to keep up with San Antonio then maybe we'd better increase our investment in education.  Hmmm?

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair, from January 2012:

About a year ago, we realized we were ducking the underlying point of blame or credit, which was the crucial message. So we began rating those types of claims as compound statements.

Adair referred to claims associated with an executive's tenure, such as "Since X became governor, crime has decreased 50 percent."  Such claims imply that the executive carries some significant share of responsibility for the change.  In this case, Castro did not explicitly claim personal credit at all, but he did offer an explanation for San Antonio's economic performance--an explanation that jibes with the Democrat Party's prescription for helping the economy.

PolitiFact presented evidence that severely undercut Castro's point, yet gave him an unqualified "True" rating.

That's the kind of thing you get with PolitiFact.  Bias in story focus contributes heavily to the resulting "Truth-O-Meter" ratings.


The grades:

Sue Owen:  F
W. Gardner Selby:  F
John Bridges:  F


Update/Correction June 10, 2015: Replaced wrong fact check URL with the correct URL.

Grading PolitiFact (Texas): Paul Sadler and the doubled debt?

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Sue Owen:  writer, researcher
W. Gardner Selby:  editor


Analysis:

Speaking for myself, if I fact checked Paul Sadler on a claim that the federal debt doubled during the Bush administration there's little chance I'd have much problem with it.  It's the way PolitiFact does its fact checking that draws my scrutiny.

PolitiFact tracked the origin of Sadler's claim down to a chart published in the New York Times.

PolitiFact:

According to the chart, the Bush administration began with a $5.8 trillion gross federal debt, which grew by $6.1 trillion to reach $11.9 trillion --  an increase of 105 percent, or slightly more than double. The Times ascribed the increase in debt to "tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the) economic downturn in 2001 and recession starting in 2007."

Following a suggestion from Treasury spokesman Matthew Anderson, we found that plugging the fiscal years of Bush’s presidency -- October 2001 through September 2009 -- into the Treasury’s online calculator gives debt figures that tally with the Times graphic. While that period begins nearly nine months into Bush’s presidency, it also aligns with the years over which he held budgetary sway.

With a little luck Bush can get credit for President Obama's FY2009 spending while also losing out on any help at all from the modest budget surplus in 2001.

PolitiFact got help from Robert Sahr, a political scientist at Oregon State University.

PolitiFact:

Sahr produced a spreadsheet for us with fiscal year-end debt numbers from the federal Office of Management and Budget. Among the results: As with the Treasury calculator, 2001-2009 public debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars went up 130 percent. Adjusted for inflation (to 2011 dollars), though, the increase was 88 percent.

Lucky Bush!  Using the OMB numbers will, in fact, allow Bush to take advantage of Obama's 2009 spending, in particular the initial phase of the economic stimulus package. Bush also ends up on the hook for the OMB's calculations for bailout spending, most of which was repaid and thus had little lasting effect on the federal debt.

This is a PolitiFact fact check.  This is what you get.

PolitiFact:

Some news analyses have compared changes in debt using inauguration dates. We checked those with the Treasury calculator, finding that from Bush’s first inauguration, January 20, 2001, to the day President Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009, gross federal debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars rose from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, up 86 percent.

So now PolitiFact is trying to steal credit for stimulus spending from Bush.  But at least he still gets a heap of credit for bailout loans at this stage.  Note that PolitiFact doesn't bother chipping away at the 86 percent figure by adjusting the figures for inflation.  In 2009 dollars the $5.7 trillion from 2001 turns into $6.9 trillion, which drops the increase by 32 percentage points down to 54 percent.  The latter figure doesn't look very good for Sadler, so let's just forget we ever did that calculation.  Thank goodness PolitiFact didn't bother us with such distractions.

Now for some comedy relief from Sadler:

When we checked back in with Sadler, he objected to adjusting the debt changes for inflation, saying by email: "I seriously doubt any holder of the debt or your bank would allow you to adjust your debt for inflation.  The amount owed is the amount owed - you don't get to adjust it for inflation."

It was magnanimous of PolitiFact to refrain from pointing out that Sadler's statement is silly.  Inflation is the borrower's friend.  It is the lender who would like to adjust for inflation and receive an added bonus to the repayment.  Fortunately for the lender, inflation is typically accounted for in the scheduled interest rate.  Lucky Sadler!


PolitiFact Texas concludes:

We see how Sadler reached his conclusion. In raw terms, both the public debt and gross federal debt more than doubled during the fiscal years corresponding to Bush’s presidency. However, adjusting for inflation, gross debt increased 70 percent over those years, while public debt increased 88 percent. That’s not quite doubling.

We rate Sadler’s claim Mostly True.

Problems:

1)  Evidently none of the figures recognize the temporary nature of the debt resulting from the bailout spending in 2009.  That bailout spending accounted for very roughly $441 billion as of  June 30, 2009 (note that the government accounting is not straightforward--the OMB and CBO use different methods of calculating TARP spending).  The budgeted spending is very probably much less than the amount added to the debt because of loan repayments, and the spending will appear higher in OMB estimates.

2)  Bush gets about $120 billion in ARRA (stimulus) spending credited to his FY2009 account.  ARRA spending and bailouts combined may account for nearly $600 billion in supposed debt.  The story omits all of this context.

3)  Following the above, the inauguration date figures probably provide a better estimate of the debt increase than those from the end of the 2001 and 2009 fiscal years:  That estimate comes to a 54 percent increase on the gross debt after adjusting for inflation.

4)  PolitiFact's figure for the increase in gross debt after adjusting for inflation represents a 63 percent inflation (34 percentage points) over the more realistic 54 percent figure.  PolitiFact proposes grading Sadler "Mostly True" for a figure that, by PolitiFact's accounting, was exaggerated only by as much as 43 percent.  Sadler appears more accurate than PolitiFact.

5)  PolitiFact omits a great deal of information regarding the precipitous climb in spending for 2009, much of it owing to the bailout programs, and apparently never considers the debt as a percentage of GDP, perhaps the method most favored by economists in measuring the growth of debt.

In terms of normal communications, Sadler is in the ballpark even if the debt only increased 54 percent under Bush.  Sadler's mild exaggeration is not nearly as offensive as sham fact checking that pretends to an expertise absent in the finished product.  This fact check looks like it was chosen and executed primarily to aid President Obama in the 2012 election by blaming Bush for a large federal debt.

Contrast this fact check with PolitiFact's consistent treatment of recent Republican claims that ObamaCare taxes make up the largest tax increase ever.  PolitiFact doesn't even pause at adjusting for inflation and proceeds straight to the percentage of GDP.  Lucky Charlotte Bergman!  Lucky Rush Limbaugh!  Lucky Josh Mandel!  All recipients of a "Pants on Fire" rating thanks to PolitiFact's use of the GDP measure.


The grades:

Sue Owen:  F
W. Gardner Selby:  F

I'm okay with a "Mostly True" for hapless Paul Sadler, who apparently has no clue as to how inflation affects lending.  I'm not very sympathetic to fact checking that could pass for deliberate partisan spin.


Afters: 

For the curious (obviously not PolitiFact), gross debt as a percentage of GDP increased from 56.4 percent in 2001 to 83.4 percent in 2009.  That's an increase of 47.9 percent, well short of the 100 percent figure that would mean doubling, and even short of the 50 percent increase that would allow Sadler to do some liberal rounding up.  Lucky.


Correction July 26, 2012:  Originally published including the sentence starting "The latter figure doesn't look very good for Sahr."  Sadler was the name I intended to use.  Apologies to good Mr. Sahr for my error.

Grading PolitiFact: Joe Biden and the Flint crime rate

To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message.
--PolitiFact editor Bill Adair

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Sue Owen:  researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

This PolitiFact item very quickly blew up in their faces.  The story was published at about 6 p.m. on Oct. 20.  The CYA was published at about 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 21, after FactCheck.org and the Washington Post published parallel items very critical of Biden.  PolitiFact rated Biden "Mostly True."

First, the context:



(my portion of transcript in italics, portion of transcript used by PolitiFact highlighted in yellow):

BIDEN:

If anyone listening doubts whether there is a direct correlation between the reduction of cops and firefighters and the rise in concerns of public safety, they need look no further than your city, Mr. Mayor.  

In 2008--you know, Pat Moynihan said everyone's entitled to their own opinion, they're not entitled to their own facts.  Let's look at the facts.  In 2008 when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city.  In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes, just to pick two categories, climbed to 229.  In 2011 you now only have 125 shields.  

God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don't rectify it.  And God only knows what the number would have been if we had not been able to get a little bit of help to you.

As we note from the standard Bill Adair epigraph, the most important thing about a numbers claim is the underlying message.  Writer Angie Drobnic Holan apparently has no trouble identifying Biden's underlying message (bold emphasis added):

If Congress doesn’t pass President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, crimes like rape and murder will go up as cops are laid off, says Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s a stark talking point. But Biden hasn’t backed down in the face of challenges during the past week, citing crime statistics and saying, "Look at the facts." In a confrontation with a conservative blogger on Oct. 19, Biden snapped, "Don’t screw around with me."

No doubt the Joe Biden of the good "Truth-O-Meter" rating is very admirable in refusing to back down.  The "conservative blogger" is Jason Mattera, editor of the long-running conservative periodical "Human Events."  You're a blogger, Mattera.  PolitiFact says so.

But back to shooting the bigger fish in this barrel.

PolitiFact:

We looked at Biden’s crime numbers and turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's uniform crime statistics to confirm them. But the federal numbers aren’t the same as the numbers Biden cited. (Several of our readers did the same thing; we received several requests to check Biden’s numbers.)

When we looked at the FBI’s crime statistics, we found that Flint reported 32 murders in 2008 and 53 murders in 2010. Biden said 35 and 65 -- not exactly the same but in the same ballpark.

Drobnic Holan initially emphasizes a fact check of the numbers.  Compared to the FBI numbers, Biden inflated the murder rate for both 2008 and 2010, and his inflated set of numbers in turn inflates the percentage increase by 45 percent (or 27 percentage points, going from 60 percent to 87 percent).  So it's a decent-sized ballpark.

PolitiFact:

For rapes, though, the numbers seemed seriously off. The FBI showed 103 rapes in 2008 and 92 rapes in 2010 -- a small decline. The numbers Biden cited were 91 rapes in 2008 and 229 in 2010 -- a dramatic increase.

If inflating the percentage increase in murders by 27 percentage points is not a problem for Biden then this at least sounds like a problem.

After going over some other reports on the numbers and a surprising discussion of how not much evidence suggests that Obama's jobs bill would address the number of police officers in Flint, PolitiFact returns to the discrepancy between the numbers:

(W)e found that discrepancies between the FBI and local agencies are not uncommon, and they happen for a number of reasons. Local numbers are usually more current and complete, and local police departments may have crime definitions that are more expansive than those of the FBI.

All this is very nice, but we're talking about the city of Flint, here.  We don't really need current stats for 2008 and 2010 because they're well past.  Perhaps that affects the completeness aspect of crime statistics also; PolitiFact's description is too thin to permit a judgment.  As for "expansive" definitions, well, there's a problem with that.  Biden's number of rapes in 2008 is lower than the number reported in the UCR (FBI) data.  That is a counterintuitive result for a more expansive definition of rape and ought to attract a journalist's attention.

In short, even with these proposed explanations it seems as though something isn't right.

PolitiFact:

Flint provided us with a statement from Police Chief Alvern Lock when we asked about the differences in the crime statistics, particularly the rape statistics.

"The City of Flint stands behind the crime statistics provided to the Office of The Vice President.  These numbers are an actual portrayal of the level of violent crime in our city and are the same numbers we have provided to our own community. This information is the most accurate data and demonstrates the rise in crime associated with the economic crisis and the reduced staffing levels.

"The discrepancies with the FBI and other sources reveal the differences in how crimes can be counted and categorized, based on different criteria." (Read the entire statement)

This is a city that's submitting clerical errors to the FBI, and we still have the odd problem with the rape statistics.  If the city can provide numbers to Joe Biden then why can't PolitiFact have the same set of numbers?   And maybe the city can include stats for crimes other than the ones Biden may have cherry-picked?  Not that PolitiFact cares about cherry-picked stats, of course.

Bottom line, why are we trusting the local Flint data sight unseen?

PolitiFact caps Biden's reward with a statement from criminologist and Obama campaign donor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University to the effect that Biden makes a legitimate point that "few police can translate to more violent crime" (PolitiFact's phrasing).  Fox affirms that point, by PolitiFact's account, though it's worth noting that on the record Biden asserted a "direct correlation" between crime and the size of a police force.  The change in wording seems strange for a fact check outfit that maintains that "words matter."

The conclusion gives us nothing new other than the "Mostly True" rating.  Biden was supposedly "largely in line" with the UCR murder data for Flint.  His claim about rape apparently did not drag down his rating much even though PolitiFact admittedly could not "fully" explain the discrepancies.  PolitiFact apparently gave Biden credit for the underlying argument that reductions in a police force "could result in increases in violent crime" despite Biden's rhetoric about a "direct correlation."

The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Sue Owen: N/A
Martha Hamilton:  F

This fact check was notable for its reliance on sources apparently predisposed toward the Obama administration and its relatively unquestioning acceptance of information from those sources.  The Washington Post version of this fact check, for comparison, contacted three experts to PolitiFact's one and none of the three had an FEC filing indicating a campaign contribution to Obama.

And no investigation of whether Biden cherry-picked Flint?  Seriously?  See the "Afters" section for more on that as well as commentary on PolitiFact's CYA attempt.