Brendan Nyhan

Yes, the former editor of the Times editorial page wasted an entire column on a wacky campaign quiz. Hilarious stuff.

How misguided was the Internet mob that smeared the Frost family, whose 12-year-old son delivered the Democratic radio address on SCHIP, as undeserving? Even the Wall Street Journal editorial board calls the Frosts “just the sort of family that a modest Schip is supposed to help”:

Unfortunately, that narrative was bolstered this week by some conservative bloggers. After the Schip veto, Democrats chose a 12-year-old boy named Graeme Frost to deliver a two-minute rebuttal. While that was a political stunt, the Washington habit of employing “poster children” is hardly new. But the Internet mob leapt to some dubious conclusions and claimed the Frost kids shouldn’t have been on Schip in the first place.

As it turns out, they belonged to just the sort of family that a modest Schip is supposed to help. One lesson from this meltdown is the limit of argument by anecdote. The larger point concerns policy assumptions. Everyone concedes it is hard for some lower-income families like the Frosts to find affordable private health coverage. The debate is over what the government should do about it.

My friend Chris Mooney is right to praise Hillary Clinton for promising to stop the politicization of science if she’s elected president. But as Chris points out, the document promoting her plan repeatedly uses the misleading phrase “ban” to describe President Bush’s stem cell policy before clarifying that Bush’s policy only limits federally funded research. Given the numerous previous claims by Democrats (here and here) that Bush has banned stem cell research, this is a troubling sign that the tactic will be revived for the 2008 campaign.

Here’s the summary at the top of the release:

Hillary will restore the federal government’s commitment to science by:
-Rescinding the ban on ethical embryonic stem cell research…

The body of the document begins with this:

Hillary Clinton’s Agenda to Reclaim Scientific Innovation

Hillary will restore the federal government’s commitment to science by:

-Signing an Executive Order that:

*Rescinds President Bush’s ban on ethical embryonic stem cell research and promotes stem cell research that complies with the highest ethical standards…

The release finally explains later that “President Bush issued an Executive Order banning federal funding for some of the most promising avenues of stem cell research.”

From the Department of Implausible Claims:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pushed back against criticism from fellow Democrats that she is too polarizing to unite the country as president, arguing that the political battles she has been through make her uniquely equipped to bring the nation together and build a centrist governing coalition.

By this logic, couldn’t Newt Gingrich make the same claim? He’s polarizing too!

The larger problem here is that the Democrats’ eagerness to distance themselves from the Bush years is causing them to fetishize bipartisanship at home and diplomacy abroad. While the current administration has given short shrift to both, Hillary, Obama, and the other Democrats are building expectations way too high that they will be able to create a bipartisan governing coalition in Congress and negotiate a series of agreements with rogue regimes like Iran. The reality is that there are structural reasons why both are hard to do. And if a Democrat fails to meet those expectations, the press will jump all over them.

The “Bush boom” touted by National Review Online “expert” Jerry Bowyer is kicking in:

New data shows that after adjusting for inflation, 95 percent of Americans reported smaller incomes to the tax man in 2005 than in 2000.

Despite this, all Americans had more in their pockets as a result of the Bush tax cuts, although the increases ranged from barely perceptible for the bottom half of American earners to thousands of dollars a month for those at the top, Internal Revenue Service figures show.

For the bottom half of Americans, the average after-tax income in 2005 was $14,526, which was $20 a month more than in 2000. Without the tax cuts, their incomes would have slipped by $234 a year, or around $20 a month.

The next higher 25 percent, who made $30,881 to $62,068, had on average $52 a month more after taxes in 2005. For the next 20 percent above that, the increase ranged from $144 to $274 a month.

The only group to report higher incomes both before and after taxes was the top 5 percent.

Here’s the relevant graph:

Angry liberals frequently suggest that I criticize both sides to make money. For instance, Eric Alterman published a letter in which a reader said my “pox-on-both-your-housesism … pays the rent.” Tell that to my bank account! The truth is almost exactly the opposite. If Spinsanity had been partisan, we might have gotten Media Matters dollars. Instead, I’ve made pennies per hour. Outside of a rapidly shrinking circle of celebrity pundits in the DC/NY establishment (Broder, Friedman, etc.), moderation doesn’t pay. My ideas may be wrong, but they’re based solely on conviction.

Update 10/12 1:12 PM: Alterman, who complains publicly about Dan Rather not remembering his name, is accusing me of whining:

Alter-question: Whose whining about their own sad lives is funnier/more pathetic? The liberal hawks? Or poor (literally) Brendan Nyhan?

Stay classy, Eric!

As awareness grows (here, here, here, and here) that Barack Obama may not have the stomach to lead an effective negative campaign, will Democrats turn toward John Edwards as the best hope of the anti-Hillary opposition? He was really good on Meet the Press…

In a photo opportunity with his economic team today, President Bush used the new deficit numbers to again suggest that tax cuts increase revenue:

You know, last February, it was projected that our deficit would be $244 billion, and today the Director informed us that the deficit — actual deficit is $163 billion. In other words, as a result of the hard work of the American people, this economy is growing; the growing economy has yielded more tax revenues than anticipated. And because of fiscal restraint, those tax revenues went to reduce our deficit.

The deficit today is at 1.2 percent of GDP, which is lower than the average of the last 40 years. In other words, we have told the American people that by keeping taxes low we can grow the economy, and by working with Congress to set priorities we can be fiscally responsible and we can head toward balance. And that’s exactly where we’re headed.

The accompanying White House fact sheet is even more direct:

As a percentage of the economy, the deficit is now lower than the average of the last forty years. Tax cuts work to promote economic growth, and that economic activity brings in higher revenues to the Federal treasury. This year tax revenues grew by $161 billion to reach $2.568 trillion, the highest level of Federal revenues ever recorded. That’s an increase of 6.7 percent. And it builds on the 14.5 percent and 11.8 percent increase in revenues during the last two years.

The key to this tactic, as we pointed out at Spinsanity in 2003, is Bush’s strategically ambiguous rhetoric, which typically suggests tax cuts increase revenue without making a direct claim:

Bush plays on two facts: tax cuts are likely to stimulate some growth in the economy, and a growing economy will produce more tax revenue at a constant level of taxation. By repeating the phrase “more revenues coming into the Treasury” alongside a push for his tax cut, Bush implies a link between tax cuts and increased government revenues.

Of course, even administration economists reject this suggestion, but why should Bush stop making it? He’s done so successfully for years without serious challenge from the press (see here, here, and here for more). As a result, most of the GOP presidential candidates are making similar claims.

Update 10/11 9:10 PM: For an example of how bad press coverage of these claims has become, check out this “he said”/”she said” classic from the AP:

While the administration contends that Bush’s first-term tax cuts helped jump-start economic growth and are contributing to record revenues currently, Democrats dispute that view, saying the tax breaks were tilted to the wealthy and actually have contributed to the record deficits.

Is the sky up or down? Views differ!

Mark Leibovich is a former writer for the Washington Post’s loathsome Style section who now writes narrative-driven political “news” for the New York Times. Today he has an annoying piece on Fred Thompson’s performance in last night’s GOP debate:

“All he has to do is not fall asleep,” the columnist Roger Simon wrote of Mr. Thompson in Tuesday’s edition of the Politico, a political Web site. “All he has to do is not throw up.”

And upset of upsets — Mr. Thompson did not throw up, fall asleep or, for that matter, drool (another stated benchmark).

Plus, he even knew who the leader of Canada was. “Harper,” Mr. Thompson answered confidently in response to a potential gotcha from Chris Matthews of MSNBC.

“Prime Minister Harper,” Mr. Thompson added for good measure, as if hoping for extra credit for “prime minister.”

It was a nothing exchange, except that Mr. Thompson’s campaign might never have recovered had he answered it wrong.

Does anyone really think that not knowing the prime minister of Canada would have ended Thompson’s campaign? Leibovich is also ignoring the fact that any damage done to Thompson would have been the result of reporters like him turning the question into some sort of phony “moment.”

On the other hand, there are good journalists at the Times. In a separate article on how the state of the economy was portrayed in the GOP debate, ace business reporter/columnist David Leonhardt delivers the accurate — and disturbing — bottom line with a directness you rarely see in “objective” news reporting:

It’s just as clear that Democrats think that the political game has changed. Pay for most workers has been growing only a little faster than inflation over the last five years, and except for the late 1990s hasn’t really done well since the early 1970s. Inequality has returned to the levels of the 1920s.

Contrast that with the lame “he said”/”she said” coverage the Times has given to the SCHIP debate in recent days. In my fantasy world where McClatchy takes over the NYT’s Washington bureau, they should keep Leonhardt.

In yesterday’s New York Times, Jon Chait got out his crystal ball:

Remember the Republican presidential debate a few months ago, when three candidates raised their hands to indicate they didn’t believe in evolution? Something just as laughable is likely to happen today, at the first Republican debate on the economy. Every candidate will probably embrace the myth that cutting taxes increases government revenues. At the very least, no one will denounce it as a falsehood.

As predicted, two candidates stepped up to the plate:

SEN. BROWNBACK: I’ve put forward a proposal of an optional flat tax, and putting that on the table, saying, okay, you can pick this. If you want to stay in the code, go ahead, God bless you, but here’s an optional flat tax. Sixteen countries around the world have gone to the flat tax. Nobody’s gone back away from it, because it creates growth, it creates growth in the economy, and it increases revenue for the government…

GIULIANI: I cut taxes 23 times when I was mayor of New York City. I believe in tax cuts. I believe in being a supply-sider. I cut the income tax — I think it was 24 percent. We got 42 percent more revenues.

I see in The Wall Street Journal this morning an editorial that says: Can we take the good news that the tax cuts have actually worked to produce about $500 billion in additional revenue no one ever thought was possible?

Giuliani (here and here), Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and John McCain have previously made similar claims during the campaign in an effort to win over economic conservatives. Any chance a reporter or debate moderator might ask the candidates why they’re endorsing a theory that even Bush administration economists reject? Anyone?