Econ 101 video: seven reasons not to raise taxes

Hat tip to Power Line.





The rap-style cinematic showdown between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek may be viewed here.

PolitiFact's Ucci correction/update

PolitiFact published another flub recently, putting to virtual print an incorrect dollar figure as part of a story about bank security.

This flub helps illustrate the way PolitiFact exercises its corrections policy when its editors feel something must be done.

Here's the policy:

When we find we've made a mistake, we correct the mistake.

• In the case of a factual error, an editor's note will be added and labeled "CORRECTION" explaining how the article has been changed.
• In the case of clarifications or updates, an editor's note will be added and labeled "UPDATE" explaining how the article has been changed.
• If the mistake is significant, we will reconvene the three-editor panel. If there is a new ruling, we will rewrite the item and put the correction at the top indicating how it's been changed.

Here is the result of the policy:

Update: The initial version of this item incorrectly reported the amount of money stolen in the 2010 robbery outside a bank. It was $12,542.

Getting the number wrong probably seems like a "factual error" to most of us.  Apparently at PolitiFact a "factual error" is something a bit worse than publishing the wrong figure.  Maybe the original version of the story was only off by a dollar or two?  The "Update" shows the amount stolen "was" $12,542.  "Was" in actuality or "was" in the original version?  Let's check the figure in the updated version:

On the morning of Sept. 20, 2010,  a 49-year-old service station manager brought a deposit bag with $12,542 to a Citizen Bank branch in Woonsocket. A man in a ski mask confronted him outside the bank and demanded the money.

The $12,542 figure "was" the correct figure, then.  And PolitiFact's clarification does a perfect job of keeping you from knowing how PolitiFact had it wrong--unless you do a bit of digging and locate a cached version of the original story.  In which case it reads like this:

On the morning of Sept. 20, 2010,  a 49-year-old service station manager brought a deposit bag with $1,242 to a Citizen Bank branch in Woonsocket. A man in a ski mask confronted him outside the bank and demanded the money.

Publishing a figure off by a factor of (approximately) 10 is apparently not a "factual error."  Most likely the error was bumped into "clarification" territory because it appears to have resulted from a typographical error (omitting the "5").

The clarification was notably lacking in transparency, however, when it comes to that.

WaPo poll: Release of Obama birth certificate cuts # of birthers in half

This looks like job for ...

Brendan Nyhan!

I've been tweaking above-the-fray political scientist Nyhan over his series of "misperception" studies for some time.  This one gives him some explaining to do, particularly in light of something he wrote in anticipation of the reaction to President Obama sharing his long-form Hawaiian certificate of live birth:

Given how much evidence is already available, it's hard to see why a long-form birth certificate would suddenly change the minds of people who are predisposed to believe in the myth. The hardcore are already shifting to new rationales for questioning Obama's right to hold office and deconstructing the PDF released by the White House for supposed evidence of forgery.

Perhaps if Nyhan's conclusions had been as equivocal as his data then he'd have less to explain.

Here's one blogger enthusiastically awaiting Nyhan's explanation.  Especially for the drop in Democrat birtherism from 15 percent all the way down to 7 percent, or about the same reduction by percentage as found among  conservative Republicans.

Grading PolitiFact (Florida): Bill Nelson and provisional ballot rejection

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

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Aaron Sharockman:  writer, researcher
John Bartosek:  editor


Analysis:

I wonder if Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) knows that the most important aspect of a numbers claim is the underlying message?  Even more so, I wonder if PolitiFact staffers Aaron Sharockman and John Bartosek realize it.

Nelson used the provisional ballot stat to bolster his claim that a Republican bill affecting election procedures targeted women and young people.  That's the way PolitiFact tells the story, anyway.  Good luck finding a quotation from Nelson making that clear.

Trust PolitiFact.

PolitiFact:

Republicans say it's a way to eliminate possible voter fraud. But Democrats like Nelson say it's an (sic) way to suppress the votes of people most likely to change their names (women) and people most likely to move frequently (young people and college students). At a press conference with Democratic state legislators on May 2, Bay News 9 and Central Florida 13 reporter Troy Kinsey asked Nelson what was so wrong with people having to cast a provisional ballot.

"Look at history," Nelson answered. "Look at the provisional ballots in 2008. Fifty-five percent of them were discounted. Fifty-five percent of the people who cast a provisional ballot in the last presidential election -- their vote did not count."

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair says the underlying message is the most important aspect of a numbers claim.  Since history suggests that PolitiFact often fails to bother separating the underlying message from the literal numbers claim, let's pause to evaluate Nelson's statement.

First, we have a literal numbers claim, that 55 percent of provisional ballots--presumably in Florida--were not counted.

Second, though more importantly using Adair's guidelines, Nelson sends the message that having to use a provisional ballot serves to suppress votes.  We can't reasonably presume Nelson to mean he wants illegal votes protected, however.  If we take that course then things like age restrictions on voting likewise count as voter suppression efforts.  Nelson is reasonably taken as talking about suppression of legal votes.

PolitiFact's subsequent assay of the facts shows that Florida's provisional ballots were considered unevenly according to locale.  For example, Broward County rejected 94 percent of its provisional ballots while Duval County rejected a mere 19 percent.  The differences in the numbers prompt quite a few questions, but the PolitiFact assessment is sadly superficial, limited to a quotation of a Pew Center on the States report mentioning some differences in rejection criteria.  PolitiFact offers no suggestions as to the significance of the rejection criteria, moving quickly to focus on the literal numbers claim:

In total, Pew reported that 35,635 Florida voters submitted provisional ballots in the 2008 fall election (.42 percent of the total 8.4 million who cast ballots for president). Of the 35,635 ballots submitted, 17,314 were counted and 18,321 were not counted.

To line that up with Nelson's claim, that means 51.4 percent of the provisional ballots submitted were not counted for one reason or another.

As Nelson could justify rounding to 55 from 52.5, his number represents an inflation of only about 2 percent.  So the literal claim as to the numbers is close, and we can file the figures away to contribute to our evaluation of the PolitiMath theorem of mathematical accuracy.

PolitiFact:

State Department spokesman Chris Cate also provided us with provisional ballot statistics from the 2010 general election. They are worth noting because the percentage of provisional ballots ultimately discounted was cut in half when compared to 2008. In the 2010 fall election, local canvassing boards considered 13,181 provisional ballots. Canvassing boards wound up counting 9,790 of the votes and tossing out 3,391 provisional ballots -- or 25.7 percent of the total number of provisional ballots.

Nelson said that "55 percent of the people who cast a provisional ballot (in Florida) in the last presidential election -- their vote did not count." Two slight clarifications: Nelson is slightly high on the percentage claim, and he fails to note that the percentage of provisional ballots counted improved greatly in 2010. We rate this claim Mostly True.

It is worth noting, or rather emphasizing, that PolitiFact has implicitly detected an underlying message that figures in the final ruling.  After all, if the question was only the percentage of provisional ballots rejected in the 2008 election then the number of provisional ballots rejected in the 2010 election is entirely irrelevant.  Yet PolitiFact justified dropping Nelson from "True" down to "Mostly True" based in part on the 2010 numbers.

PolitiFact's attempt to evaluate the underlying message qualifies as severely underdeveloped, unfortunately.

As noted above, the reasonable version of Nelson's argument hinges on the number of legitimate votes lost as a result of the provisional ballot process.  PolitiFact fails to address the issue--a great yawning hole in the story.  The difference in the percentages of provisional ballot rejection, by itself, means nothing.  What matters is the extent to which the percentages reflect the loss of legitimate votes.  And that's quite the can of worms that PolitiFact leaves untouched.

It is a type of voter fraud to vote in the wrong precinct.

I'll repeat that to give it time to sink in.

It is a type of voter fraud to vote in the wrong precinct.

Precincts exist for a reason.  They are intended to help limit who can vote on what.  New York residents should not vote in Florida elections, for example.  For that reason, one of the statistics bandied about by PolitiFact (quoted from the Pew Center report) caused me some consternation:  "In Broward County, 100 percent of rejected provisional ballots were not counted because they were cast by voters not registered in the state."

Broward, one of Florida's most populous counties, was the one that rejected 94 percent of its provisional ballots (see above).

The Pew report, in truth, provides only a wisp of support for Nelson's underlying argument.  That wisp comes from the fact that poll workers sometimes make mistakes in handling provisional voters and their ballots bold emphasis added):

Finally, more than 27,000 or 6 percent of rejected ballots were disallowed because of various errors, including incomplete provisional ballot envelopes, missing or non-matching signatures on the provisional ballot applications, incomplete applications, and envelopes that contained no provisional ballots. While a number of these errors were likely committed by voters themselves, some were the result of administrative problems at the polls.

That 27,000 was a national figure, by the way.

It simply isn't clear, contrary to Nelson's argument, that rejecting provisional ballots is a bad thing.  We don't want New York residents voting in Florida even if they are women or college students.  Nor do we want to make it easy for people to vote in the wrong precinct.

Nelson's underlying argument is a red herring offered with PolitiFact's tacit approval.  The vast majority of rejected provisional ballots get rejected for good reason.  And for some reason PolitiFact did not seem to think it was important to Nelson's argument.

Go figure.



The grades:

Aaron Sharockman:  F
John Bartosek:  F


Afters:

It has been argued that provisional ballots should count as legitimate votes to the extent that the votes align with the choices available in a given precinct.  All Florida precincts vote for governor of the state, for example.  While the suggestion addresses, at least partly, the problem of fixing elections with imported votes, it produces an odd result.  Why should voters using the provisional ballot carry a privilege unavailable to voters who turned up at the correct precinct?

Bottom line, this controversy underscores the difference between the Republican and Democrat views of the voting process.  Republicans tend to try to restrict voting to those with at least some qualifications.  Democrats tend to want as many votes cast as possible.

Why Americans don't like atheists

(a reply to "Why do Americans still dislike atheists?")

The column by Gregory Pauland and Phil Zuckerman ironically helps explain the tendency in America to distrust (a preferable term to "dislike," I think) atheists while decrying the same.

An example paragraph:

A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

First, let's not assume that people simply assume that atheists are unsavory beings.  Many of us have personal acquaintances who provide evidence of unsavory atheism.  News reports, in addition, often introduce people to some of the least savory atheists, such as those who appear to actively dislike believers.

Second, it's hard to take an atheist seriously about being "more ethical" than other groups prior to the atheist's having established some sort of standard by which to measure one position as more ethical than another.

It'd be a fun diversion to pick apart this story piece by piece, but instead here's the quick summary:  Atheists, if you want believers to like and respect you then avoid falling into the things you dislike in the religious groups you criticize, such as the dubiously justified superior moral attitude and clumsily directed attacks at the other guy's belief system.

And while you're at it, come up with an epistemologically accessible and coherent atheistic version of moral realism.



(There are plenty of atheists I like, by the way)

Grading PolitiFact (Florida): Eric Eisnaugle and Mickey Mouse's voter registration

Bias 
Any trend in the collection, analysis, interpretation, publication or review of data that can lead to conclusions that are systematically different from the truth.
--J. A. Last, "A dictionary of epidemiology"

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Aaron Sharockman:  writer, researcher
John Bartosek:  editor

Analysis:

Sharockman and Bartosek have collaborated on a sensational example of selection bias.  Let's observe their method as they quote a series of claims by Florida state representative Eric Eisnaugle:

"We have seen allegations of fraud, (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) investigations. (We have seen) falsifying of hundreds of registrations, including the registration of an actor who was already deceased at the time. In another case, Mickey Mouse was registered to vote.

"In yet another case, hundreds or thousands ... of students were registered to vote without their knowledge after they simply signed a petition, having no idea that their information was then going to be turned around and used to register their names on the voter rolls here in Florida."

The claims are:

• a deceased actor had a voter registration application falsified
• a cartoon rodent was registered to vote
• signers of a petition were registered to vote without their knowledge

As a matter of stated policy, PolitiFact tries to separate claims and grade them individually.  PolitiFact will presumably grade each of the claims separately.  Or maybe not so much:

Eisnaugle made three different fraud claims, and we plan to touch on each in this fact check to see if they're true. But for the sake of the Truth-O-Meter, we're going to home in on the line that stuck out because of the absurdity of it, if true: "Mickey Mouse was registered to vote."

PolitiFact chose the most potentially absurd of the three claims to position the needle of the "Truth-O-Meter."

What about the claims that don't count on the "Truth-O-Meter"?

PolitiFact:

The group workers turned in 1,400 cards, of which 888 were found to be fraudulent. Included among the fraudulent voter applications -- deceased actor Paul Newman.

That one sounds true.

PolitiFact:

The workers would have the students sign a petition to legalize marijuana or a petition urging stiffer sentences for child abusers. Then, workers would have students unknowingly fill out a second form registering them to vote as Republicans.

The claim about a third-party group registering students surreptitiously also sounds true.  Eisnaugle's not bad on the Meatloaf-O-Meter, even if the Mickey Mouse claim doesn't pan out.

And what of the Mickey Mouse claim?  Was Walt Disney's signature creation registered to vote in Florida?

It comes down to the meaning of "registered to vote."

When I read the PolitiFact story, I took "registered to vote" to mean that Mickey was eligible to walk up on election day, had he desired, and cast his vote.  Was my view prejudiced by the accompanying story?  Could be.  I can't say for sure.  What I do know is that when I listed to Eisnaugle speak, I took him to mean that Mickey had been registered in the same sense that Paul Newman had been registered--via the creation of a fraudulent voter registration application.

I encourage readers to conduct their own tests.  Download the video by clicking here and watch Eisnaugle speak at about the 2:28 mark (props to PolitiFact for providing the link even if the alternate interpretation was never considered in the story).

The context supports the interpretation scorned by PolitiFact.  All of it surrounding the Mickey Mouse example concerns the actions of third-party registration groups.

PolitiFact did not address the comments of Lyndsey Cruley, spokeswoman for Florida's House Republicans:

"In sum, although Rep. Eisnaugle’s remarks could be interpreted, if taken out of context, in two different ways, he clearly intended to demonstrate that some third-party registration organizations have committed fraudulent actions here in Florida."

Cruley's explanation fits the facts.  Why wouldn't PolitiFact acknowledge the point?

And if PolitiFact is narrowly focused on the truth of the potentially absurd registration of Mickey Mouse, then why does PolitiFact editorialize regarding the bill Eisnaugle was extolling?

PolitiFact:

What's worth noting is that, in all three stories Eisnaugle cited, the fraud was exposed. The only real impact was that students in 2004 were registered as Republicans when they wanted to be registered as something else. It's also worth noting that it's unclear how HB 1355 -- had it been part of election law -- would have altered any of the above three scenarios.

I suppose Eisnaugle should have used examples of unexposed fraud.  Though how he would know about unexposed fraud ought to cause its own set of suspicions.  That, in fact, is one of the reasons why bills such as the one in question may prove helpful.  Our system makes it pretty easy to hide fraud.  For example, felons may have illegally voted in Florida's elections.  How does one detect it other than by catching them in the act?

In the end, PolitiFact's editorializing misses the mark.  Eisnaugle did not claim that the examples he cited would have been altered with the bill in effect.  He cited the claim to silence the complaint that no problem with election fraud exists in Florida.


The grades:

Aaron Sharockman:  F
John Bartosek:  F

Flunk factors:  Ignoring the obvious charitable interpretation of Eisnaugle's statement, editorializing about Eisnaugle's point while disclaiming interest in Eisnaugle's point (not to mention missing the latter).  The selection bias problem is not specific to Sharockman and Bartosek.  That is a systemic problem.


Afters:

The insidious effects of the type of selection bias found in this PolitiFact story have their full effect when PolitiFact encourages readers to look at the collected statements about a person in order to develop an impression about the person.  Using Eisnaugle as an example, the reader of Eisnaugle's PolitiFact "report card" (they actually call it that!) would see a lone "False" rating.  Yet if PolitiFact had chosen either of the other two statements to rate, Eisnaugle would have a lone "True" rating.  Or if PolitiFact had rated all three, Eisnaugle could expect to have two "True" ratings and one "False" rating.

What good is a grade point average created under these types of conditions?

Grading PolitiFact: Chris Hayes means the median

We interview impartial experts.
--About PolitiFact

After the article is edited, it is reviewed by a panel of at least three editors that determines the Truth-O-Meter ruling.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor


Analysis:

It's risky exposing journalists to math.  Just sayin'.

PolitiFlub: Reince Priebus and the tax burden

Unbelievable:

When Priebus says that "Americans will pay more in taxes in 2011 than they will spend on groceries, clothing and shelter combined," his statement is vague enough to be read either as an aggregate measurement (in which case he’d be correct) or a description of the patterns for individual Americans (in which case he’d likely be wrong more often than he’s right). On balance, we rate his statement Half True.

In other words, PolitiFact cares naught for the principle of charitable interpretation--unless perhaps as it can be wielded to ignore reasonable interpretations of statements by Democrats such as Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) or used in reverse on Republicans such as Grover Norquist.

The inconsistency is laughable.

Grading PolitiFact: Michele Bachmann and taxing the top 1 percent

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor


Analysis:

Remember the good old days when it was easy to tell what type of taxes a politician was talking about?  When Marcia Fudge said many large corporations pay no taxes at all, a journalist could simply assume that she was talking about income taxes and do a fact check based on that assumption.

Things are more complicated these days with evil Republicans in office.

Michele Bachmann appeared on NBC's "Today" show with Matt Lauer and stated that the top 1 percent of income earners pay 40 percent of all taxes.  That calls for the reverse assumption of the one made with respect to Fudge, the benevolent non-Republican.

PolitiFact:

"If that's on the table, then why shouldn't the burden be equally shared?" Lauer asked. "Why shouldn't we put some of that burden on the wealthy and corporations?"

Bachmann responded, "Well, remember, again, already the top 1 percent of income earners pay about 40 percent of all taxes into the federal government. So if you want to talk about fairness, the top 1 percent are paying 40 percent of all of the income."

We wondered whether she was right that "the top 1 percent of income earners pay about 40 percent of all taxes into the federal government."

In the bygone days of yore, that would be "40 percent of all income taxes into the federal government," or at least the interpretation would amount to the same thing.

Bachmann on video, for what it's worth:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PolitiFact:

So -- using 2007 numbers at least -- Bachmann is off by quite a bit. She’s even further off if you use an estimate for 2010 by the centrist to liberal Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, which pegs the share of all federal taxes for the top 1 percent at 22.7 percent.

If PolitiFact judges Bachmann by the cited 2007 numbers then Bachmann inflated the figure by just over 42 percent.

If PolitiFact judges Bachmann by the Brookings estimate for 2010, then Bachmann inflated the figure by just over 76 percent.

We can thus continue to build our picture of the PolitiMath theorem by noting that PolitiFact takes a range of error from 42 to 76 percent as a "False" numbers claim, setting aside for the moment the fact that the most important thing about a numbers claim is the underlying message.  If Bachmann's underlying message was that the top 1 percent pay much more than 1 percent of the total tax income for the U.S. then she's out of luck this time.  She's likewise out of luck if she misspoke.

PolitiFact:

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.

Likewise, Fudge would have been right if she'd said "There are corporations in this nation, some of the biggest corporations in this nation, who do not pay income taxes when they fail to show a profit after claiming their deductions."  Oh, wait.  PolitiFact rated Fudge "True" for her inaccurate statement and Bachmann "False" for hers.  That's some pretty impressive inconsistency.


The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Martha Hamilton:  F

If, as PolitiFact's chief editor Bill Adair claims, the underlying message is the most important thing about a numbers claim, then I can flunk Jacobson and Hamilton for not making any noticeable effort to tease out Bachmann's underlying message.  Or maybe Jacobson and Hamilton did a purely brilliant job and I should criticize Adair for blowing hot air.

I'll stick with the former until either Adair relinquishes his post or posts changes in his edicts regarding numbers claims.

Grading PolitiFact: Mike Pence and the Ryan plan for Medicare

This review takes on PolitiFact's second attempt to rate Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) for a statement on ABC's "This Week."  Those curious about PolitiFact's first attempt can find a few details here.

The issue:

On the full page at PolitiFact, a "Barely True" graphic occurs just below the clipped material

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

It's worth touching on the correction notice that now heads the story:

Correction: This item was originally published at about noon on April 13, 2011, based on ABC's transcript of "This Week With Christiane Amanpour." Shortly afterward, Pence's press office notified us that the transcript text was wrong -- leaving out the words "kind of."  Listening to the exchange on video, we confirmed the error in our original ruling. As a result, we are republishing this item at about 6 p.m. on April 13 with the correct quote from Pence and have upgraded the ruling from False to Barely True.

Isn't it basic that a verbal statement should be verified audibly?  It is a fact-checking failure to rely on a flawed transcript.  At least the correction has PolitiFact shouldering slightly more responsibility than their earlier place-holding announcement (via FaceBook):  "removed Mike Pence item because he was misquoted in This Week transcript."  Taking Responsibility version: "removed Mike Pence item because we relied on a flawed transcript for the fact check item."  But that's water under the bridge.  On to the more immediate problem:

"House Republicans under Paul Ryan's leadership have offered a vision to put America back on a pathway toward a balanced budget," Pence said. "It deals with issues in entitlements. It reduces the national debt. For Americans 55 or older, we're not proposing a single change in Medicare... What we want to do for Americans under the age of 55 is make sure they can participate in the same kind of health plan that members of Congress do."

Pence’s final claim about Medicare drew a response from Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who was also on the show.

"That is not accurate," Van Hollen said. "Members of Congress have what is called a fair-share deal. We do not bear the entire risk of increased costs. They are asking seniors to bear risks (that) they are not asking themselves."

In the first paragraph featuring the quotation from Pence we have the claim we see in the headline as well as the source of the paraphrase--the things PolitiFact has already communicated as "Barely True."  The shift to Van Hollen introduces a second claim that appears to occupy PolitiFact's subsequent focus during the fact check process.  The second claim:

Pence replied, "Members of Congress have the same premium support system, Chris knows that."

We decided to see who was right by fact-checking Pence’s statement that future Medicare beneficiaries will be able to "participate in the same kind of health plan that members of Congress do."

As is so often the case, PolitiFact takes its first step with the wrong foot.

Van Hollen claims Pence's statement is inaccurate.  And he also claims--apparently in justification of his initial claim--that Congress does not bear the entire cost of premium hikes.  Van Hollen's reply to Pence is a bit of a red herring.  There is a difference between an insurance plan and an insurance benefit as provided by an employer.  Van Hollen tries to contradict Pence by conflating the two.  PolitiFact plays it Van Hollen's way. But in reality we have two claims from Pence, first that the next Medicare generation will be able to purchase plans like those Congress chooses, and second that the payment system for those plans is like that of Congress.

Writer Angie Drobnic Holan spends a number of paragraphs accurately describing the basics of Ryan's plan and stays in fair territory with the initial comparison:

Now let’s look at how whether proposal looks like what members of Congress can buy.

• How the plan is like what members of Congress get. We contacted Pence’s office to ask about how the Ryan proposal is like what members of Congress get, and they pointed us to the fact that Medicare plans from private insurers will be required to comply with a benefits standard set by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as do plans that cover members of Congress.

We should also note that seniors would be able to compare different plans and select from different insurance options, as members of Congress do. The government would pay part of premiums, as it does for members of Congress.

The similarity makes Pence look correct, though Drobnic displays a Van Hollenish tendency to lump the method of payment in with the plan itself.  Then comes the foul:

• How the plan is not like what members of Congress get. First, the plans would be created specifically for Medicare beneficiaries on newly created Medicare health insurance exchanges. (Exchanges are virtual marketplaces where people can shop for insurance.)

Second, as Van Hollen pointed out, members of Congress are protected somewhat when health insurance companies raise their rates, through a formula he mentioned known as "Fair Share." Generally speaking, the government pays for 75 percent of the average of the health insurance plans it offers. If the overall plans increase in price, the government still pays 75 percent.

1)  PolitiFact's first point is irrelevant.  Creating something new does not automatically make it substantially dissimilar to the model. 

2)  The second point requires a supporting argument.  PolitiFact's supporting argument will not stand, as we shall see.

PolitiFact:

Federal support for premiums in Ryan’s plan, though, would not keep pace with medical inflation. Premium support instead would be pegged to the consumer price index, which historically lags health care costs.

This paragraph from PolitiFact is unusual coming from a journalist.  Why?  Because journalists tend not to make key statements of fact on their own.  They nearly always, by design, refer such statements to a trusted authority so that the reader doesn't have to place trust directly in the journalist.  Fortunately, PolitiFact provides lists of sources in company with each of its fact checks.

Time (blog by Kate Pickert):

The subsidies would increase at a rate indexed to inflation, which is growing much more slowly than health care costs.

 So Van Hollen is right!  But wait!

Fortune:

The 2012 budget replaces the voucher concept with "premium support payments" -- once again, modeled on the federal employees system -- that the government would pay directly to the insurance plan the enrollee chooses.

So Pence is right!  Or close, anyway.  But wait!

The Congressional Budget Office (see p. 8):

People who become eligible for Medicare in 2023 and subsequent years would receive a payment that was larger than $8,000 by an amount that reflected the increase in the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) and the age of the enrollee. The premium support payments would increase in each year after initial eligibility by an amount that reflected both the increase in the CPI-U and the fact that enrollees in Medicare tend to be less healthy and require more costly health care as they age. (For example, projected net federal spending per capita for all people age 65 and older in traditional Medicare would be about $15,000 in 2022, CBO estimates, in comparison with about $8,000 for 65-year-olds.)

If the CBO is right then the others are wrong, but Pence is probably the closest.

How did Drobnic conclude that Time was correct?  Perhaps her fourth source, from the "Wonk Room" of the dependably liberal Think Progress swayed her to discount the CBO:

Ryan is constraining the rate of growth in Medicare by offering seniors a defined contribution, regardless of the rate of growth in health care costs. The federal government’s contribution in the FEHBP program, by contrast, reflects actual increases in premium levels. As the Office of Personnel Management describes it, the FEHBP formula “is known as the ‘Fair Share’ formula because it will maintain a consistent level of Government contributions, as a percentage of total program costs, regardless of which health plan enrollees elect.” The difference is that Ryan’s proposal provides seniors with a set amount of money that, in order to reach the kind of savings he’s advertising, would have to depreciates every successive year — even as health care costs increase.

Whatever the process, the story suffers for lack of an explanation.

Speaking of suffering, we have more rationalization from PolitiFact:

Our final point on how the plans differ may seem obvious to some, but we feel it’s important to mention: Members of Congress receive employer-based insurance. By definition, that means they receive a salary to help pay for their insurance. The base pay for members of Congress is currently $174,000.

Medicare beneficiaries, on the other hand, tend to make a lot less money, because most of them are retired. The median income for Medicare beneficiaries was $20,644 in 2010. And only 5 percent had incomes exceeding $82,695, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

This is just silly.  Pence said the new Medicare generation could buy insurance like that available to Congress, not that the insurance would be purchased by the government in whole or in part.  Van Hollen's red herring is to Angie Drobnic Holan as flowers are to Ferdinand the bull.

Hoodwinked by Van Hollen and mysteriously concluding that Ryan's premium supports are "pegged to the consumer price index," Drobnic's conclusion is predictable:

We should emphasize that Ryan’s Medicare proposal is only a broad outline right now, and there are many unanswered questions about it. But what we do know about it strikes us as fundamentally different from the kind of employer-provided health insurance that members of Congress receive. At a minimum, the premium supports will not keep pace with the historic record of rapidly increasing health care costs. Additionally, seniors make significantly less income than members of Congress and will likely not have the same options to buy more expensive plans. And, finally, they will not (have) the same protection against rising costs that "Fair Share" provides members of Congress. We rate Pence’s statement Barely True.

The conclusion is based squarely on two parts red herring and one part dubious assumption about the nature of Ryan's premium supports.  Importantly, the issue of premium supports is only relevant with respect to Pence's claim that "Congress has the same premium support system"--not at all the claim blaring in the PolitiFact headline.


The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Martha Hamilton:  F

PolitiFact's readers deserve to know how and with what level of confidence PolitiFact determined that Ryan's premium support system is pegged to the consumer price index.  The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.  Or so I've heard.

Afters:

I had intended to contrast a pair of epigraphs at the beginning of this item, one consisting of PolitiFact's self-statement of nonpartisanship and the second consisting of PolitiFact's burden of proof criterion ("People who make factual claims are accountable for their words and should be able to provide evidence to back them up").  But I ran into a problem because I can no longer find a statement of PolitiFact's non-partisanship on pages such as "About PolitiFact" (with the exception of PolitiFact Texas).  If the line has been scrubbed perhaps we can score one for truth in advertising.


April 15, 2011:  Rewrote point #1 after it was mysteriously eaten by Blogger's dog.   RIP the lovingly crafted baseball analogy.