PolitiFlub: Scott Walker vs. the unions

Just a reminder:  I exercise selection bias in deciding which PolitiFact items to critique.  By no means do I read all of them.  I look at ones I think are likely to contain errors based on their subject matter.  I tend not to have any difficulty finding errors, and I expect that if I looked at more of the items I'd find many more errors.

I don't have time for do a detailed critique of every PolitiFact item in which I find flaws.  But sometimes I have to point out a significant mistake even if I don't do the full critique.  That's what "PolitiFlub" items are for.

This item concerns a spectacular offense against the principle of charitable interpretation, committed by PolitiFact Wisconsin.  PolitiFact took issue with Walker's description of his clash with Wisconsin's public sector unions:

He focused sharply on labor unions, which fought legislation by Walker and Republican lawmakers to curtail collective bargaining and force  public workers to contribute more toward pensions and health care. That push, which became law, attracted massive and prolonged protests in Madison.

"I asked the unions to pay into their own health care insurance (just as their Wisconsin neighbors do) and they said I was being unreasonable," Walker’s letter said. "I requested that they contribute toward their own pensions (just as their Wisconsin neighbors do) and they screamed it was unfair."

What was the problem?

In PolitiFact's eyes, Walker made it look like he was asking the unions to agree to the changes in pension and health care contributions:

(T)he portrayal of "asking" the unions rewrites history, leaving the misleading impression there was give and take with labor.

Why is this a PolitiFlub?  Isn't PolitiFact obviously correct?

Shame on you if you think so.

PolitiFact conveniently overlooks that "ask" and "request" and their permutations are routinely used where the associated behavior represents a demand.

Teacher:
"I ask that you all take your seats."

Politician:
"With this tax hike we're simply asking the filthy stinkin' rich to pay their fair share."

Still think I'm kidding?

5. to demand; expect: What price are they asking? A little silence is all I ask.

And, yes, the word "request" works the same way:

5.    the state of being asked for; demand.

The principle of charitable interpretation must receive evenhanded application in fact checking to ensure fairness.  Every subject, without exception, is entitled to charitable interpretation.  Skipping the step according to whim or bias leads to the straw man fallacy and other errors.

PolitiFlub: False assumptions equal true foundations

The PolitiFlub label exists for times when I don't intend a full evaluation but nonetheless have found something worth criticizing in a PolitiFact story.

Such as this one.

Sometimes I don't know whether laugh, stare or simply fall out of my chair:

When we ran the White House's approach by Boehner's office, a spokesman said that they're based on a faulty assumption -- that the Boehner proposal would institute identical, across-the-board cuts for every department and program. In fact, the spokesman said, the proposal would be to set the entire discretionary budget to 2008 levels and then negotiate cuts in each program to meet that target.

That's all well and good, but the fact is that Boehner's news release doesn't explain exactly how its cuts would be made. So, given the information available, we think it's reasonable for Axelrod to have based his claim on an across-the-board cut. Moreover, if Boehner's office is suggesting that under his proposal, the cuts in education could in fact be less than 20 percent, then by the same logic they could also end up higher than 20 percent.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, PolitiFact just informed you that, in the context of a fact check, it is reasonable for David Axelrod to make a false assumption where the available information does not directly forbid the assumption.

I suppose this is the type of fallacious reasoning we should expect from a fact check organization that has as one of its principles the notion that the failure of a subject to substantiate their claim amounts to a failure to meet the burden of proof and can justify a "False" rating on the "Truth-O-Meter."

Blech.

PolitiFlub: The SEIU take on the Fair Tax

I don't have time to do a full in-depth grading on every flawed PolitiFact story I see, hence the new story category, "PolitiFlub."

PolitiFact very recently posted a new story about an SEIU ad attacking a Republican candidate for one of  Indiana's congressional seats:

PolitiFact commits at least one major blunder in concurring with the SEIU that the Fair Tax would result in double taxation.  The PolitiFact story omits the fact that income and Social Security taxes are already embedded in the things we buy.  So seniors are already double-taxed as it is, but the taxes are hidden in the cost of the item.

PolitiFact used FairTax.org as a source, yet apparently neglected to notice a key statement:

The tax is completely transparent in that it is easily seen and understood at the time of purchase. As such, it makes clear to the citizenry the amount of federal revenues collected. This transparency also makes embedding “hidden” federal taxes almost impossible, unlike the current system which taxes goods and services multiple times before the point of purchase.

It isn't certain at this point whether the rate of the Fair Tax would necessarily exceed the current amount of embedded taxation.  Some claim that the 23 percent rate would prove insufficient for maintaining the government's current funding level.  But that's another story.  The story here has PolitiFact omitting information critical to a proper understanding of the Fair Tax and thereby lending the SEIU undue credibility.

PolitiFlub: When words don't really matter that much

The impetus for this PolitiFlub comes from PolitiFact Texas, rating a claim by Democrat Gilberto Hinojosa.

PolitiFact quotes Hinojosa:

"A large majority of the Republican Party believes that this man is a Muslim and was born in a foreign country, was not born in the United States," he said at the Central Texas Democratic Forum on April 24, 2012.

I'm in favor of charitable interpretation for all, but it's appropriate to at least mention each reasonable interpretation.

Hinojosa may have intended to say that a majority of Republicans believe both (and not or) propositions.  In other words, the exact same group in the sample supposedly holds both beliefs.

For example (figures simply for the sake of argument):

52 percent believe Obama is a Muslim and born outside U.S.
8 percent believe Obama is a Muslim, but born inside U.S.
11 percent believe Obama is not a Muslim but was born outside U.S.
(71 percent believe Obama is a Muslim or born outside U.S.)

Consistent with PolitiFact's statement of principles, the fact check should have considered the less charitable interpretation.  It is the best practice to inform the reader when one is using the principle of charitable interpretation in a fact check.

In this case, contrary to PolitiFact's principles, words weren't important.  Hinojosa's specific wording was forgiven without comment in favor of a less literal interpretation.

PolitiFlub: Engaging Rick Perry

I can't pass this one up, so it's time for another PolitiFlub item, the Cliff's Notes version of the Grading PolitiFact category.

A PolitiFact item stemming from Florida's iteration of the GOP presidential debate focused on this (bold emphasis added) statement from Gov. Perry in response to fellow candidate Rick Santorum (bold emphasis carried over from the version published by PolitiFact):

WALLACE: Governor Perry, 30 seconds to respond, sir.

PERRY: I've got one question for him.

Have you ever even been to the border with Mexico?

SANTORUM: Yes.

PERRY: I'm surprised if you have, but you weren't paying attention, because the idea that you --

SANTORUM: Well, the answer is, yes, I have.

PERRY: -- are going to build a wall, a fence for 1,200 miles, and then go 800 miles more to Tijuana, does not make sense. You put the boots on the ground.

We know how to make this work. You put the boots on the ground. You put the aviation assets --

SANTORUM: But it's not working, Governor.

PERRY: -- in the ground. No, it's not working because the federal government has not --

SANTORUM: But you said we know how it works. Is it working in Texas?

PERRY: The federal government has not engaged in this at all. When I'm the president of the United States, I'll promise you one thing --

SANTORUM: But you're saying you put the assets there. Has it worked in Texas?

PERRY: -- we will put the assets on the ground --

SANTORUM: You said you have.

PERRY: -- the boots on the ground --

BAIER: Senator Santorum, let him finish, please.

PERRY: -- the aviation assets on the ground, and we will stop illegal immigration, we will stop the drug cartels, and we will make America secure.

Hmm.  In what has the federal government not engaged?



PolitiFact:

Really? There aren't any federal boots on the Texas border?

Really?  PolitiFact seriously thinks Perry was saying the federal government hasn't put any agents along the Texas border?

If they're going to take it that literally then they might as well take Perry to be suggesting that we can secure the border by dropping boots from the sky to land along the southern border.  Boots as in shoes.

Basic charitable interpretation suggests that Perry was talking about something more than simply having agents on the border.  Even PolitiFact grants that it matters what the agents do while they're stationed there:

We're not checking whether federal investment has been effective — merely, as Perry said, whether the federal government has been "engaged."

This fact check item is a bad joke.  One cannot assume that Perry was denying the presence of federal agents on the border with his statement.  Perry's words carry a good deal of ambiguity stemming from his failure to specify what it is the boots ought to do while on the ground.  One can fault Perry for that, but it's simply ridiculous to leap to the assumption that he was denying the presence of federal agents.

The term "engaged" carries a connotation of focus.  As well, Perry may not have gotten around to describing the particular booted activity in which the federal government has failed to engage.  Moderator Chris Wallace terminated the exchange and Perry had only received permission for a 30 second response in the first place.

The PolitiFact item contains no hint that the PolitiFact team tried to obtain any clarification from Perry regarding his intent.  Therefore, the tag "journalists reporting badly" applies.

Sad.

PolitiFlub: Tom Coburn and the PolitiFact corrections game

When we make a mistake, we correct it and note it on the original item. If the mistake is so significant that it requires us to change the ruling, we will do so.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

Pity poor PolitiFact.  They knoweth not what they do.

PolitiFact tried to make good on its corrections policy this week by updating an item on Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).  Coburn, in the context of drawing attention to the increase of government spending, claimed the government has doubled in size since 2001.

PolitiFact conclusion version one:

Coburn is entirely right about federal outlays doubling over 10 years. And if you use one of two plausible measures, he’s right on the growth since Obama took office. But using another plausible measure, the growth of government under Obama was smaller. On balance, we rate Coburn’s statement Mostly True.

PolitiFact addicts may note that PolitiFact has broken its rule of dividing complex statements into individual claims for purposes of Truth-O-Meter ratings:

PolitiFact writers and editors spend considerable time deliberating on our rulings. We always try to get the original statement in its full context rather than an edited form that appeared in news stories. We then divide the statement into individual claims that we check separately. For example, a Bill Richardson TV ad produced two claims. (We only make Truth-O-Meter rulings on those individual claims. We don't make them in our articles because they often summarize multiple Truth-O-Meter items that had different rulings.)

PolitiFact's principles often seem more like ... guidelines.  They "only" make Truth-O-Meter rulings on the individual claims except when they don't.

But back to Coburn and PolitiFact conclusion version two:

We don’t think that Coburn was entirely wrong to use non-inflation-adjusted dollars, but it would have been better if he -- and we -- had adjusted for inflation. Doing it this way still means there was a significant increase in government over the period he studied, but not as high as he had indicated. On balance, we have decided to lower our ruling from Mostly True to Half True.

It would be pretty easy to accept PolitiFact's revised rating of Coburn if was consistent with PolitiFact's usual practice.  Sure, Coburn was probably using his doubling reference kind of like a "large as a football field" type reference to simply illustrate the growth in terms the average listener could easily grasp.  His point, as PolitiFact appears to note, was simply that the government has grown considerably in the past decade in terms of spending.


Afters

PolitiFlub: The argument over job creation in Mitt Romney's Massachusetts

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

Apparently PolitiFact simply isn't capable of applying the results of its examination.

A  pair of fact check stories published yesterday illustrate the point.

The Obama campaign has hit former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney over his record on job creation in that state.  The Romney campaign has replied with numbers that imply Romney performed well in Massachusetts on job creation.

PolitiFact picks up on the context of battling rhetoric:

Both presidential campaigns are using job statistics to attack each other. President Barack Obama and his allies have spent months criticizing Mitt Romney’s job-creation record as governor of Massachusetts. Now, Romney and his surrogates are arguing that job creation in Massachusetts actually improved on Romney’s watch.

So who’s right?

PolitiFact's wrong, at least if we take its "attack each other" description to apply to this pair of fact checks.  The Obama campaign is attacking.  The Romney campaign is defending.  PolitiFact mischaracterizes the relationship between the two claims and botches at least one of the rulings.

PolitiFact:

For this fact-check, we'll follow our usual approach of looking at the claim in two parts: first, are the numbers correct, and second, how much is the change because of Romney's policies?

The described approach works well, at least potentially, for the attacking claim from Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod.  Axelrod says Massachusetts ranked 47th in job creation under Romney.  The claim only makes sense in the campaign if Romney is significantly responsible for the number.

The same approach is wrong for Eric Fehrnstrom's reply because Fehrnstrom is countering Axelrod's attack.  Fehrnstrom's argument doesn't require credit to Romney for the rise in rankings.  Fehrnstrom's statistic plays its primary role in undercutting Axelrod's argument.  Fehrnstrom, in effect, supplies part of the context that Axelrod deliberately neglected.

PolitiFact often bases its rulings on the degree to which a statement ignores context that might shed different light on a claim.  Fehrnstrom's head and shoulders over Axelrod in that regard in this case, but PolitiFact misreports Fehrnstrom's role in the argument and laughably gives both statements a "Half True" rating.

Want some partisan spin with your fact checking?  PolitiFact's your source.

PolitiFlub: Promise kept by Obama on tapping Strategic Petroleum Reserve? (Updated)

Yesterday PolitiFact added another "Promise Kept" to President Obama's list.

Ordinarily PolitiFact's Obameter ratings for promises kept interests me little.  Presidents tend to promise way more than they can ever deliver as a prerequisite to their election.  Obama had the good fortune to take office with a unified government and a filibuster-proof Senate majority.  So the project's a bit of a yawner.

Yesterday's item caught my attention, however.  There had to be context behind a promise to tap the Strategic Oil Reserve.  But the PolitiFact accounts mostly downplayed that context.  Here's how PolitiFact presents the so-called promise:

"Will swap oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to cut prices . . . a limited, responsible swap of light oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for heavy crude oil to help bring down prices at the pump."

PolitiFact makes it sound like President Obama was pledging to use a release of oil from the Reserve as a method for dealing with the high price of petrol.

But the original context (Page 20) was more specific than that (bold emphasis added):

Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we have an economic emergency that requires a limited, responsible swap of light oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for heavy crude oil to help bring down prices at the pump. 

Unless President Obama believes that the oil prices constitute "an economic emergency" then this promise remains unfulfilled.  And perhaps Obama believes exactly that.  But why would PolitiFact bury that aspect of the promise with an ellipsis and refrain from considering it in the story?

My take:  PolitiFact prepared a layup for the president.  Each of the last three presidents (Bush, Clinton, Bush) tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  By obscuring Obama's statement about economic emergency, the "Promise Kept" rating fails to register as a signal of failing economic policy and instead accords with the narrative of a president who addresses problems:  He's fixing the high price of oil, not admitting to the existence of an economic emergency.


Update:

The latest Michael Ramirez cartoon makes much the same point about Obama's decision.  Hat tip to Power Line.

PolitiFlub: Udderly confused by EPA's milk regs

This.
just.
doesn't.
look.
very.
easy.
to.
reconcile:

(link to story at PolitiFact.com)

That's President Obama from yesterday's State of the Union Address.

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The latter rating came from PolitiFact Virginia almost a full year ago.

On the face of it, one can imagine a reconciliation of the two rulings.  But it's doubtful if you've looked at the one for Obama after evaluating the one for Griffith.

The best part of it is that PolitiFact may have flubbed both rulings.  The EPA was leaning toward an exemption for homogenized milk.  But the exemption would not have covered raw milk, which should have left Griffith's claim at least partly true.  And if raw milk received no exemption from the EPA then Obama's claim is approximately half true as well.  A raw milk spill would still be treated just like an oil spill even after President Obama supposedly eliminated the rule that required a milk spill to be treated like an oil spill.

Welcome to the wonderful world of PolitiFact fact checking.

Update:  Looks like the EPA did get around to exempting all milk products from the rule. Griffith was still partially correct at worst, and President Obama did not eliminate an EPA rule.  Rather, Obama's EPA exempted milk from a rule that remains in effect.  And Obama's statement obscures the administration's vacillating actions on the issue:

"The Obama Administration pulled back the rule in January of 2009, then reissued it in November, and to large degree it was the same rule," Schlegel said.

PolitiFlub: the inflation miscalculation

Have I mentioned that journalists and math remain a volatile combination?

Seems like I have.

PolitiFact Oregon gives us yet another example.  I stumbled across this story from 2010 while looking at PolitiFact's history of applying inflation adjustments to dollar figures said to represent a doubling.

It's crazy what you can find in PolitiFact's archives.  Republican Scott Bruun claimed federal government spending doubled between 2000 and 2009.

PolitiFact Oregon stumbled when it ran the numbers:

At first glance, it appears he is right. His campaign cited numbers from the federal Office of Management and Budget that show total federal spending in 2000 was $1.78 trillion. By 2009, spending increased to $3.5 trillion. So that’s about double in unadjusted dollars.

But if you account for inflation, the spending total is $1.78 trillion in 2000 and goes to $2.29 trillion in 2009. That’s only a 29 percent increase.

I wonder what inflation calculator was used?  Apparently not this one:

www.bls.gov

Go ahead.  Visit the URL and try it.  One can also plug in the 2000 baseline and adjust it to 2009 dollars.  It works either way.  But don't adjust 2000 dollars to 2009 dollars and adjust 2009 dollars to 2000 dollars in the same equation.  And in particular do not plug the $1.78 trillion figure into the first box, adjust that year 2000 figure into 2009 dollars and then take that result as the increase in federal spending.

Yet the latter is apparently close to what PolitiFact Oregon did.  It's the type of mistake one might call "bungling" yet it has lasted unmolested in PolitiFact's archives for nearly a year.

Charles Pope of PolitiFact Oregon, you've been noticed.

Bill Adair, you let that error pass?

The percentage increase was about double what PolitiFact Oregon reported.   Fact check that, PolitiFact.

PolitiFlub: PolitiFact again ignores data on effective federal tax rates

PolitiFact's latest fact check involving federal taxation sticks with its persistent pattern of ignoring and/or minimizing data on effective federal tax rates, including a study by the otherwise esteemed Congressional Budget Office.

A new ad from President Barack Obama’s campaign continues the drumbeat that Mitt Romney is a privileged rich guy who isn't paying his fair share of taxes.

"You work hard, stretch every penny," a narrator says. "But chances are, you pay a higher tax rate than him: Mitt Romney made $20 million in 2010, but paid only 14 percent in taxes — probably less than you."

Huh.  The Obama campaign didn't specify federal income taxes.  No worries.  Obama isn't Michele Bachmann, so PolitiFact can overlook the campaign's oversight.

PolitiFact then:

Bachmann would have been right if she’d said, "the top 1 percent of income earners pay about 40 percent of all income taxes into the federal government." But she didn’t say that -- and even if she had, her decision to focus on income taxes, rather than looking at the whole federal tax picture, would have presented the numbers in such a way that wealthier Americans would look more heavily taxed than they are.

So we want "the whole federal tax picture"?  Not so.  PolitiFact wants the tax picture minus the effects of corporate and excise taxes.  The thread is consistent and continues through today.

PolitiFact:

If you just look at income taxes, Obama is incorrect.

Bummer.  But since Obama didn't specify "(federal) income taxes" PolitiFact can consider payroll taxes while continuing to ignore corporate and excise taxes.  Or something like that.

PolitiFact:

So what happens when you add payroll taxes to income taxes? Obama's ad is accurate. Here's the breakdown when you include income taxes and both sides of the payroll tax (the parts paid for by employee and employer):

Bottom fifth of earners: 1 percent
Second-to-bottom fifth:  7.8 percent
Middle fifth: 15.5 percent
Second-highest fifth: 18.7 percent
Highest fifth: 24.3 percent

Once again, we can’t know exactly what percentage of Americans paid a higher effective tax rate than Romney's 14 percent, but the top two ranges, plus a significant share of the middle group, most likely did. So probably more than half exceeded Romney’s rate, making the Obama ad accurate.

Yippee!  Obama's ad is accurate!  Average out the true and the false, give the president a "Half True" and nobody really needs to know about that messy corporate and excise tax stuff.

Speaking of that messy corporate and excise tax stuff:

(click image for enlarged view)

The chart comes directly from the CBO report mentioned up above.  There are two important things to note.  First, excise taxes fall more heavily on those in the lower income quintiles.  That's a minor point.  Second, the burden of corporate taxes falls heavily on those with higher incomes.  And the higher you go with income, the higher the corporate tax burden.  That likely means that persons like Romney pay higher portions of the corporate tax burden as a percentage of their federal taxes.

Using "the whole federal tax picture" that PolitiFact once cited as its ideal standard, the middle quintile pays less than half the average federal tax burden of a person in the top 1 percent in 2006 (14.2 percent compared to 31.2 percent).  That means that it is very probably false that most people pay less in federal taxes than Romney.

Luckily for the president, PolitiFact can make it look otherwise by cherry picking.

That's PolitiFact for you.


Afters: 

See also the review of a similar story from Annenberg Fact Check.


After Afters:

Just a little review of what PolitiFact wrote while rating Bachmann "False":

[Bachmann's] decision to focus on income taxes, rather than looking at the whole federal tax picture, would have presented the numbers in such a way that wealthier Americans would look more heavily taxed than they are.

PolitiFact's hypocrisy is pretty overwhelming, isn't it?

PolitiFlub: PolitiFact puts a price tag on ObamaCare

Hilarious.

In fact, the CBO has said that overall the health care bill actually reduces government spending by about $124 billion over 10 years.

PolitiFact makes this claim in the context of a story about spending under the Accessible Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

PolitiFact doesn't use "spending" normally, here.

People use "spending" to refer to outlays.  If you make $2000 per month and spend $1500 on rent and essentials while saving $500, your spending for the month is $1500.  PolitiFact would have you count your income against your expenses and find that you spent -$500 for the month.  But that's a budget surplus, not a reduction in spending.

It's misleading to present a budget surplus or deficit as a spending figure.

No serious person thinks the ACA reduces spending.

The closest to that we can get comes from crediting the ACA with reducing the increase in Medicare spending.  We'll ignore the cautions from Medicare's chief actuary that the projections are unrealistic.  Here's what the left-leaning Center for American Progress says about Medicare savings: 

$424.4 billion: The amount of federal deficit reduction from 2010 to 2019 due to changes in Medicare coverage and payment rules under ACA. These include limits on annual rate increases for hospitals and other health care providers.

Nothing else in the ACA suggests a decrease in federal spending.  It spends more on subsidies and more on Medicaid.  The federal government will spend more with the ACA than without.

This CBO report may represent the source of PolitiFact's claim:

In March 2010, CBO and JCT estimated that PPACA and the provisions of the Reconciliation Act related to health care would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $124 billion over the 2010–2019 period as a result of changes in direct spending and revenues.

Drop the part about "revenues" and it makes for an ObamaCare-friendly soundbite.  The CBO figures the ACA as a deficit reducer not because of decreased federal spending but because of tax increases combined with the accounting trick (built into the CBO's standard methodology) of not foreseeing changes to statutorily mandated decreases in health care provider reimbursements under Medicare (see the "doc fix").  The CBO has to pretend that the "doc fix" will not occur even though it very probably will occur regularly.

PolitiFact's misstatement is the stuff of misleading political ads.  But they call it fact checking.

PolitiFlub: A static number of federal jobs programs?

What can you say about a fact-checking organization that's often no more accurate than the statements it critiques?

Case in point, PolitiFact did a check on Mitt Romney's claim that the federal government runs 49 jobs programs and oversees those programs using eight different agencies.

PolitiFact used as its key source a Government Accountability Office report that focused on fiscal year 2009.

The current year is 2012, and it is the year in which Romney made his statement.

PolitiFact made a very weak effort to update the GAO numbers with reports of new federal job training programs or changes in the number of agencies overseeing said programs.  Indeed, PolitiFact did not make any mention of the Wall Street Journal column that probably served as Romney's source:

There are no fewer than 49 federal job training programs administered by nine agencies that cost taxpayers some $14.5 billion in 2010. A General Accountability Office performance audit in 2011 looked at fiscal year 2009 and determined that "only 5 of the 47 programs have had impact studies that assess whether the program is responsible for improved employment outcomes."

If the Journal report is correct then Romney is off by one as to the number of agencies overseeing job training programs and did not overestimate the number of federal jobs programs.  PolitiFact, if the Journal report is correct, was accurate regarding the number of agencies but off by at least two regarding the number of programs, with the latter an understatement of the actual number.

It looks very much like PolitiFact simply whiffed on the attempt to check for new information updating the GAO numbers.  Without that information PolitiFact has no business trying to rate the truth of Romney's claim.

PolitiFlub: Comparing apples and appanges?

PolitiFact determines whether Mitt Romney flip-flopped on President Obama's stimulus plan:

Our ruling
It’s misleading to say that Romney flip-flopped on supporting "the president's Recovery Act." At the time of the CNN interview, no Obama stimulus bill had been introduced, much less enacted. With such complex bills, the devil’s in the details.

But before Obama took office, Romney had spoken in favor of a stimulus -- particularly if the stimulus in question had been passed when a Republican was in the White House. We rate this a Half Flip.

 So he never supported Obama's stimulus but half-flipped on supporting Obama's stimulus.

That's because he supported some type of stimulus according to the description he gave prior to Obama taking office.

This is a little like flip-flopping on Pepsi cola.  You've never liked Pepsi cola, but you do drink Coca-cola.  Since you like Coca-cola you've half-flipped on liking Pepsi cola.

It makes perfect sense once you think about it.

PolitiFlub: The employee contribution to Social Security

A recent PolitiFact fact check used the employer's share of the OASDI (Social Security) payroll tax to help calculate the effective tax rate on a person earning $50,000 per year.

I opined that PolitiFact's calculation was wrong.  And I pointed out that PolitiFact has exercised the rule inconsistently over time.  PolitiFact Bias team member Jeff Dyberg pointed me toward another recent example of PolitiFact's inconsistency:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

Herman Cain says every worker pays a 15.3 percent payroll tax.  PolitiFact finds the statement "Mostly False":

Cain said, "Every worker pays 15.3 percent payroll tax." That's not accurate. Workers only pay half that, with the exception of the self-employed, as we mentioned above.

Yet Cain could have used PolitiFact as his source for the 15.3 percent figure.  It's almost exactly what PolitiFact claimed in its fact check of President Obama (blue highlights added):

Payroll taxes fund Social Security and Medicare. In general, payroll taxes hit lower-to-middle-income taxpayers harder than high-income taxpayers, for two reasons. First, workers with low to moderate incomes are more likely than rich taxpayers to make the bulk of their income from salaries and wages, which are subject to the payroll tax, rather than capital gains or other types of investment income, which are not subject to payroll taxes. For the very rich, that pattern is reversed. Second, Social Security tax is levied only on the first $108,600 of one’s salary, meaning that virtually all of the earnings of someone making $50,000 a year is subject to it. That wouldn’t be the case for someone who’s very rich.

We asked two researchers at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institute Tax Policy Center, Roberton Williams and Rachel Johnson, for their advice on how to factor in payroll taxes. They estimated that combining the workers’ share of the payroll tax with the employer’s share -- the usual practice among economists -- would mean an extra 15 percentage points for our hypothetical middle-class worker, and less than 2 additional percentage points for the high-income taxpayer.

 Rejecting the 15 percent figure harmed Herman Cain's "Truth-O-Meter" rating.  Barack Obama and Warren Buffett received a benefit from PolitiFact's acceptance of a 15 percent figure in calculating a worker's effective tax rate on a $50,000 income.

So it's time for another little tally of how PolitiFact's inconsistency pans out in terms of the partisan divide.

Benefit
 Barack Obama (story uses 15 percent figure)
 Warren Buffett (story uses 15.3 percent figure)

Neutral?
 Jeff Merkley (story uses 6.2 percent figure)
 Barack Obama (story uses 6.2 percent figure)
 Kendrick Meek (story relies on Tax Policy Center figures)

Harm
 Herman Cain (story uses 6.2 percent figure)
 Michele Bachmann (story follows CBO in crediting employer's share of tax to the employee)
 Sheldon Whitehouse (15.3 percent would have aided Whitehouse*)


*It's worth noting that Whitehouse received so much assistance from PolitiFact in justifying his claim (ignoring the effect of corporate taxes on tax burdens) that he hardly needed any help from the employer's share of the payroll tax.

PolitiFlub: The unaccountable redefining of "unaccountable"

Few things succinctly illustrate PolitiFact's incompetence than its routine re-imagining of word definitions.

PolitiFact's March 22 item on Mitt Romney's claim that ObamaCare "ends Medicare as we know it" (the parody wasn't obvious to PolitiFact, apparently) included a repeat of PolitiFact's insistence that the Independent Payment Advisory Board is not an "unaccountable" body.

What does "unaccountable" mean?

I'll put the bulk of the evaluation at the end (see "Afters"), but the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary provides the operative definition:

2 unaccountable (to someone/something)  
not having to explain or give reasons for your actions to anyone 

• Too many government departments are unaccountable to the general public.

PolitiFact confuses the limits on the IPAB's power with accountability:

Is IPAB unaccountable? The answer is: No.

Members are chosen by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The board would not issue edicts. It would make recommendations. If Congress does not act on its recommendations within a set time, the recommendations are automatically implemented.

But Congress has other opportunities to intervene. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, the full House and Senate may consider amendments that change or repeal the board's recommendations as long as those changes meet the same fiscal criteria as the board itself uses. Congress is even granted a one-time opportunity to introduce legislation to dismantle IPAB permanently. This would require approval between January 2017 and Aug. 15, 2017, with the support of three-fifths of the members of the House and Senate.

So Congress has multiple ways to intervene. This negates the argument that its actions are "unaccountable."

PolitiFact's supposed negation of Romney's argument relies on making up a new definition of "unaccountable," something along the lines of "able to do whatever you want no matter what anybody says or does."

By the operative definition, however, the IPAB is unaccountable by design, name and definition.  It is the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

The word "Independent" does not occur in the name by accident.

The board is specifically designed to work independently of executive branch authority just like the Supreme Court (appointed by, but not under the authority of).  And it is likewise independent in exercising authority within its statutory limits without owing any reason or explanation for its decisions to anyone, including Congress.

In short, the IPAB is unaccountable by name and definition but PolitiFact can't figure it out.


Afters:

Webster's New World College Dictionary is the standard for publications using AP style.  PolitiFact publishes based on a variant of AP style.  Here's "unaccountable" as defined by Webster's New World College Dictionary:

Not accountable; not responsible

Not much help, is it?  Perhaps we can fill in the blanks with the definition of "accountable":

Obliged to account for one's acts; responsible

And there it is, approximately as clear as in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary version.  The IPAB never has to account for its actions.  It was made explicitly independent.  Congressional actions that forestall implementation of IPAB recommendations are irrelevant to the accountability of the IPAB.

What does it say about PolitiFact that it can flub this issue with no less than a writer/researcher, editor and a team of three editors overseeing the final product?



Correction/Update:  Changed "'Medicare are we know it'" to "'Medicare as we know it.'"  The team of three editors that reviews my work prior to publication has been sacked.

PolitiFlub: No credit or blame for Bill Clinton?

Rookie mistake?

Close on the heels of a hard-to-explain discrepancy involving call-and-response claims from the Obama and Romney campaigns, PolitiFact New Jersey sheds one of PolitiFact's principles like newly adult cicadas shed old exoskeletons .

Recall PolitiFact editor Bill Adair's edict that the fact checkers would start taking credit and blame consistently into account:

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.

Now watch PolitiFact New Jersey duck blame or credit as Bill Clinton claims credit for balancing the budget and partially paying down the national debt:

Our ruling

At a June 1 campaign event, Clinton touted his fiscal record in the final years of his presidency. "Then I gave you four surplus budgets for the first time in more than 70 years, paid $600 billion down on the national debt," Clinton told the crowd.

Clinton delivered four consecutive surplus budgets for the first time in more than seven decades, but the former president misstated the level of debt reduction. During those four fiscal years, the debt held by the public dropped by nearly $453 billion, but total debt jumped by about $400 billion.

We rate the statement Mostly True.

Who says the executive branch doesn't control the purse strings of the federal government?

PolitiFlub: Mike Pence/Medicare/How deep the memory hole? (Updated x3)

PolitiFact screwed up again, and this time they realized it.

Unfortunately, they didn't realize it until after publishing.


So, how does PolitiFact react?  For now, the story is stuffed down the memory hole:

The URL above led to the page from which this image was cropped as of 4 p.m. on 4/13/2011.  PolitiFact may alter the content at a later time.

They don't know where it is? If there was no such thing as humor or hyperbole, that would rate a "Pants On Fire."

It will be interesting to see what part of their corrections policy PolitiFact uses or doesn't use in treating this latest gaffe. But I like the way that "This Week" gets the blame for posting an inaccurate transcript:

PolitiFact can't be expected to actually watch the segment to verify the accuracy of the transcript.  Can it?

I found a blog with portions of the story included.  If the blogger removes the material I've got a copy I can post.

Update:

As anticipated, a new version of the Pence story has appeared at the old URL, with no specific notice from PolitiFact regarding the changes made (other than the change in the "Truth-O-Meter" rating from "False" to "Barely True."

I've detected what may be a terminal flaw in the story concerning the contested issue of the proposed insurance subsidy.  The sources represent a he-said/she-said scenario and PolitiFact apparently chooses one side (the side disfavoring Pence) arbitrarily.  As a result, my next grading of PolitiFact will probably deal with this story.


Update 2:

Just imagine my amusement when I got yet another error message at PolitiFact only to find that Dick Cheney no longer features prominently.  Chances are somebody at PolitiFact read the post above, felt a little burning of the ears because of my charge that the message wasn't true and then figured that since Cheney was out of office for a couple of years that maybe it was time to update.

If only my serious criticisms would warrant that type of action.


Update 3:

No worries, Cheney fans.  PolitiFact hasn't let him retire yet.  And PolitiFact will still claim not to know where something is when they know perfectly well where it is.

PolitiFlub: Noted enabler of political distractions identifies "red herring"

Red herring:

1. A smoked herring having a reddish color.
2. Something that draws attention away from the central issue.

--Answers.com

The logic-challenged fact checkers at PolitiFact believe they have discovered a red herring amidst Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's criticisms of President Obama's record on women's issues.

Romney charged that the Obama administration has the worst record for participation of women in the work force.  The summary from PolitiFact's response, in part:

The increases for presidents between 1948 and the late 1980s are largely due to broader social trends beyond the control of any president, so saying that Obama did worse than them is a red herring.

Hmmm?  And from what central issue is Romney distracting?

PolitiFact's response is just too funny.

The "Republican War on Women" rhetoric from Democrats is the red herring.  The central issue is the economy.  The Romney campaign is ingeniously addressing the Democrats' rhetoric of distraction and bringing attention back to the economy.  PolitiFact flags Romney for using a red herring.

Priceless.

And now to look up PolitiFact's past attempts to use "red herring" correctly in a sentence.

PolitiFlub: Fact-checking Limbaugh on the Bane/Bain connection

PolitiFact is a joke.

One of PolitiFact's latest fact checks purports to find the truth about Rush Limbaugh's supposed claim that the new Batman movie's villain, "Bane," was chosen by design to damage Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney through the latter's association with Bain Capital.

Setting aside the strong probability that Limbaugh was making a joke, this fact check is complete nonsense.  It's easy to see in PolitiFact's conclusion:

In politics, conspiracies are everywhere if you look hard enough. But Limbaugh’s superpowers of persuasion can’t make this theory stand up. The villainous Bane first appeared in Batman comic books in 1993, long before Romney entered presidential politics. Even the character’s creator called a suggested link "ridiculous." We rate this statement Pants on Fire!

It should be absolutely obvious that it doesn't matter when the Bane character was created.  I could use a cartoon character named "Boosh" from 200 years ago and make a movie out of it today to mock George W. Bush.  It isn't relevant whether the character was created without any knowledge that George W. Bush would serve as president.

If one takes Limbaugh's claim as a serious one, which is doubtful on its face, one fact checks it by looking at those who decided to make Bane the villain in this movie and when that decision was made, for starters.

The fact check is completely illogical, and that tells us something about PolitiFact.