August 2002 weblog posts

8/30/2002; 7:45:26 AM: Why Gore Lost
I wrote this back in Jan, 2001, but I still think it is a better analysis than any other that I have read:
I read a number of "Why Gore Lost" opinion pieces (sadly, several of them before the election) and I felt that all of them missed the big factors as to why Gore (kind of) lost. To me, the three big factors are the 3 M's - Money, Minor parties and the Media.

Bush outspent Gore $183 million to $118 million, the Republicans outspent the Democrats on hard money $251 million to $154 million, and the Republicans outspent the Democrats on soft money $198 million to $181 million (all numbers from www.opensecrets.org). Overall, Bush and the Republicans outspent Gore and the Democrats by almost 40%. Most of those expenditures were for TV advertising, and TV advertising is an effective way of convincing swing voters to vote for you. Bush was able to pick up a lot of swing votes just because he had deeper financial resources.

In 1992 and 1996, the minor party challenge came from the Right, but in 2000, the minor party challenge came from the Left. Nader received 2.6% of the popular vote, most of which would have gone to Gore if Nader hadn't run, and Buchanan won 0.4%, most of which would have gone to Bush if Buchanan hadn't run. If Gore had won 80% of Nader's votes and Bush had gotten all of Buchanan's votes, then Gore would have won Florida and New Hampshire and would now be President.

It is hard to sum up a year's worth of media coverage and at different times, the media favored different candidates. However, I feel the media was far harder on Gore than Bush and significantly swayed public opinion towards Bush. There were three areas that I felt the media did a particularly unfair job - they overreported Gore's scandals and underreported Bush's, they misquoted Gore to create stories unfavorable to Gore, and they severely punished Gore when he was caught lying but let Bush off the hook on his lies.

The best example I can think of the media's overreporting Gore's scandals and underreporting Bush's is the placement of two stories that were in the front section of my newspaper on the same day. One story covered a two year old memo leaked from the Justice department arguing for a special prosecutor to investigate Gore for the Buddhist temple visit, which contained absolutely no new facts. The other story was the initial publishing of evidence that Bush had been AWOL for two years from the National Guard. The Gore story was the lead story on page 1 and the Bush story was buried in the middle of the section when all logic would dictate it should be the other way around. Bush's possible false affidavit concerning the May lawsuit got little coverage, but Gore's possible lying relating to 1996 fund raising got lots of coverage.

Gore never said he invented the internet - the media took a quote out of context, changed it slightly, and then wrote about how Gore exaggerates. Gore never claimed that he and Tipper were the basis for Love Story - the media again took a quote out of context, changed it slightly, and then wrote about how Gore exaggerates. Gore never said he discovered Love Canal - again, the media took a quote out of context, changed it slightly, and then wrote about how Gore exaggerates. Gore did do farm chores while growing up, but many pundits said that he was a city boy exaggerating again. The "RATS" story is the closest the media came to inviting a bogus story about Bush, but even then it was a story blown out of proportion instead of an untrue charge.

During the first debate, Gore misstated that he had toured a disaster area with the FEMA director. He was pounded unmerciful in the media for his misstatement. Actually the pounding started just before the debates on whether pills for dogs are more expensive than pills for humans. At that time, Gore was up comfortably in the polls, but the media attack on his truthfulness soon dropped him behind Bush. In the third debate, Bush claimed credit for developing and passing two bills in a bipartisan fashion, when the reality is that he did nothing for one and he actively opposed the other. And the media did...nothing. When Clinton pointed out that Bush told a bold face lie, the media did...nothing. When the DWI story broke, the Bush Watch website quickly found instances were Bush had made public statements implying that there was no such skeletons in his past. But the mainstream media could never find anyone. Instead, Bush was able to spin that he never lied about not being arrested. And the media did...stories on how well Bush handled the crisis. The day after Bush's press conference, his spokesman was challenged on Bush, when trying to get his license back, told Maine officials that he was an infrequent drinker who only drank once a month and how that squared with other Bush statements that he was a heavy drinker before his 40th birthday. Bush's spokesman gave a defense of "It depends on the meaning of...." Did the media nail the Bush campaign for such a Clintonian statement? No, they totally ignored it (the only place I say the statement was in a transcript on Salon).

Does the fact that Gore (kind of) lost mean that he ran a poor campaign? Since Johnson passed his civil rights bills, conservative Republican candidates have run away with the Presidential election. In '68, Nixon defeated Humphrey 43.42% to 42.72%, despite losing 13.53% to Wallace. In '72, Nixon crushed McGovern 60.69% to 37.53%. In '76, running against a moderate Republican after the worst presidential scandal in at least 50 years, Carter was able to win by only 50.06% to 48.00%. In '80, Reagan defeated Carter 50.75% to 41.01%. In '84, Reagan crushed Mondale 58.77% to 41.03%. In '92, Bush defeated Dukakis 53.37% to 45.65%. In '96, Clinton won over Bush 43.01% to 37.45%, but only because Perot took 18.91%. In '96, Clinton defeated Dole 49.24% to 40.71%, but Perot took 8.40%. If you throw out '76 as an anomaly, and add Wallace and Perot's votes to the Republican candidate, conservative Republican candidates won the presidency by an average of 12.26%. For Gore to have won the popular vote against a conservative Republican, and for Gore/Nader to have a larger margin in the popular vote over Bush/Buchanan than Clinton did over Dole/Perot indicates to me that Gore did a great job.

Almost all of the "Why Gore Lost" opinion pieces focused on Gore's personal flaws or poor campaigning. Instead, they should have given Gore credit for doing so well in the face of obstacles - the 3 M's - beyond his control.

8/29/2002; 7:18:07 AM: Greenspan to get a promotion?
Prior to today, I have read only one other Bruce Bartlett column and I thought it felt into the "liars use statistics" category. However, this column about how bad Paul O'Neill is makes sense.  Until the end, where Bartlett concludes with that he hopes O'Neill is soon replaced by "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan".  Alan Greenspan!?!

8/28/2002; 7:37:56 AM: A new recommended website
I got a hit that was somehow referenced from the argmax.com website.  Being a polite blogger, I went and checked it out.  It is a website of news stories that is technically very impressive.  Check it out.

8/27/2002; 8:07:53 PM:

The 9/10 WSJ.com piece on another famous conservative
An apocryphal version of a famous Dr. Johnson remark about women preachers has come down to us as rather nuanced in its meaning. He is reported to have said that seeing women preaching is like seeing a dog walking on its front legs, not because it is well or badly done but because one is surprised to see it done at all. In this version, the remark is not intended to be boorish or unchivalrous -- but simply to illustrate something so unexpected as to be startling, perhaps so startling as to border on spectacle.

The remark resonates in the mind as being strangely applicable to Osama bin Laden, the fundamentalist firecracker and best-selling author of a recent fatwa against the US. There are many surprising dimensions to the bin Laden phenomenon. He has defied expectation, overturned prejudice even, in so many ways. He surprises, at the most basic level, by his effortlessly guilt-free flights of extroversion, his fierce -- but never humorless -- conservatism.

We have been programmed to think that such impassioned outrage, and outrageousness, are permissible only in the West, from draft-dodging Republicans or exponents of Christian fundamentalism, certainly not from nice rich Saudi-born Moslem men. From David Duke, Bob Barr, Ann Coulter, Reverend Franklin Graham, yes. Osama bin Laden -- heaven forbid. He cannot claim that his affronts have been much exaggerated by his enemies -- he has certainly courted outrage, called Britian and the US tools of Israel and the Jews, dreamed out loud that all Americans be obliterated, that the World Trade Center be bombed. It's merely that such effrontery sounds more palatable in the mouths of Republican presidents. After all, why isn't he happily occupied practicing the peaceful arts of an international playboy in some European hotspot as befits his heritage?

Well, Mister bin Laden isn't and it has upset a lot of entrenched opinions. Prejudices of this kind stem from a lazy assumption that really blistering free speech belongs more to critics of America's enemies' flaws than to celebrators of their virtues. The difference between Mister bin Laden's and the Republican presidents' fuming is surely very clear. They meant it literally, bombs and all. Mister bin Laden, on the other hand, acts out his thoughts in a kind of "what if" political theater, a tongue-in-cheek agitprop, and believes that most Moslems understand the difference. Most Moslems apparently do, as his fatwa has topped the bestseller lists for many weeks now. Why then don't his infuriated critics get it?

By all accounts, they have tried long and hard to keep ranks closed against him to shut him out of the leadership game. Why would anybody even pretend to believe that Mr. bin Laden wishes any real harm to New Yorkers or wishes to convert all Christians forcibly to Islam? The answer, one suspects, is that he and his foes insist on different visions of the world. His foes see fragile societies full of rifts and flaws, oppressions and simmering resentments that can turn into open strife any moment. Ergo, free speech, however offensive, belongs morally on their side as an instrument of social palliation. Mister bin Laden, as he has often demonstrated, inhabits a sturdier world with a self-confident unapologetic culture. In his world, political and personal, even ethnic quips get thrown about with abandon in fierce raillery, everybody laughs about it afterwards and the world is none the worse for wear. Mister bin Laden, bless his heart, would take no offense at the analogy from Dr. Johnson. His detractors would insist that he should.

Considering that most gatekeepers to our world media, out of laziness or conviction, would prefer to filter out his kind, Mister bin Laden's very survival as a public figure has been his most startling trick, indeed has offered a kind of breathtaking spectacle. For much milder remarks than he defiantly serves up, we've seen veteran world figures hounded out of their careers. Yet there he still is enduring on the tightrope, however threadbare it may be by now, his long-limbed signature silhouette poised precariously aloft, greying bearded locks riffled by the breeze and legs coltishly pirouetting above the shark pool.

Friends and foes alike, at this point, have put down their banners and turned to gape at the pure principle of anti-gravity he has come to represent. He himself admits in a recent ABC News interview that a number of Moslem governments oppose him. So he chooses to talk directly to mainstream Moslems over their heads, and Moslems have rewarded him handsomely for it. It's hard to know if this means that they applaud all of his harsher utterances, or simply his defiance and longevity in the face of adversity. To borrow from Dr. Johnson -- watching Mister bin Laden survive tenaciously on the tightrope, they may not care whether it's well or badly done, but they're surprised -- and delighted -- to see it done at all.

In case you are humor-impaired, I condemn anyone who proposes killing, threatening or harassing individuals merely because they hold political or religious views or are a member of a race different than theirs.  This is merely written to show that the reasoning used by WSJ.com in their recent Coulter piece could be used to condone bin Laden's statements.

8/27/2002; 7:24:23 AM: Consumer Sales Slowing
Consumer sales slowed in July and have slowed even more in August. I look forward to hearing how this is Clinton's fault.

8/26/2002; 10:22:29 PM: WSJ.com on Ann Coulter
It really takes an amazing piece of journalism to make me stand up for Ann Coulter, and WSJ.com has produced it.  I think she is a scary, sick wacko and it terrifies me that she is a best-selling author, but I can't deny that she has lots of fans.  WSJ.com tries to justify her most outrageous remarks by saying they are all "political theater, a tongue-in-cheek agitprop, and believes that most Americans understand the difference."  At first, I thought this implied that Coulter is a modern day Swift proposing the modern equivalent of "A Simple Proposition".  However, Coulter's outrageous remarks are an extension of her serious remarks.  It is easy to think she wishes "real harm to the New York Times" when she concludes an attack on the NY Times for their coverage of Dale Earnhardt’s death with liberals are “savagely cruel bigots who hate America and lie for sport.”  No, I think WSJ.com is saying that you can't take Coulter's outrageous comments seriously because she is a woman.  "For much milder remarks than she daily defiantly serves up, we've seen veteran broadcasters hounded out of their careers", however her "long-limbed signature silhouette" and "riverine blonde locks riffled by the breeze" apparently keep the WSJ.com from taking Coulter's remarks seriously.  The whole opening paragraph oozed condescension towards women that apparently extends to Coulter.  Coulter is a major conservative figure and for the WSJ to treat her as little better than a blonde bimbo is shocking.

8/26/2002; 7:47:48 AM:

Examples of bad journalism in the Dallas Morning News
In Sunday's A section, there was a blantantly biased story on protests that occurred during Bush's West Coast trip (sorry, can't find a link).  The article is filled with White House spin and has only one one-sentence quote from a protest organizer.  Here is some paragraphs from the body of the article:
"Peaceful protests are a wonderful part of American tradition, " Mr. Fleischer said. "Those who engage in violence regrettably represent a fringe, and that's how they're viewed." As for the nasty signs in Los Angeles, Mr. Fleischer said "Some of the fringe groups engage in extraordinary language...It's not tasteful, but it's their right." Other aides pointed out that many of the protests feature self-described anarchists. Other demonstrators, they said, are simply liberals who dislike Mr. Bush because he is a former businessman - an oil man - and a Republican.

The article has a picture with it of protesters.  The picture is focused on a young man with a nose ring who is doing nothing particular, and the normal-looking people behind him are out-of-focus.  Clear message - the protests were done by violent, nasty members of the fringes of society.

8/25/2002; 7:05:22 PM: Everyday people, Dubya style
Brad Delong has a great post about the type of everyday person that was invited to the Waco Economic Forum.

8/25/2002; 8:05:22 AM:

Week in Review
I got one comment this week.  One comment is not a lot of feedback.  Please comment to this post on what was the post this week you liked the most and you liked the least.

Roz Madden wrote in reference to my comments on an article in the USA Today about Senator Clinton laying groundwork for White House run:
Glad you liked that article too. I wrote to AP and asked why they were cobbling together random news from February and presenting it as hot stuff in AUGUST. A piece of complete drivel.

I don't agree with you on the timing, but do agree with you that the article was a piece of complete drivel.

In terms of readership, I have been getting 50+ page-reads a day and overall, I am 30th on the Salon blog list with 1,317 page reads.

8/24/2002; 7:13:07 PM:

Gallup poll details on Presidential Approval raises lots of questions
I have never understood why Dubya's approval rating is so high.  Gallup recently released a new presidential approval poll that shows Dubya's approval at 65%.  On the page of the press release, there is a graph that shows how Dubya's approval has tracked over time by political party (Republicans, Democrats, Independent).  Prior to 9/11, all three groups had relatively consistent levels of support for Dubya - the Republicans in the 85-95% range, the Independents in the 45-60% range and the Democrats in the 25-35% range.  After 9/11, Dubya's support shot up to ~82% from the Democrats, ~87% from the Independents and and ~97% from the Republicans.

Challenge time - how do you think Dubya's support trended since 9/11 by party?  Where do you think the support by party is now relative to prior to 9/11?  My guess was that all three groups would trend downward, with the Democrats having the sharpest trend and the Republicans the shallowest, and that all there groups would be 5-10% above their pre-9/11 levels.  Come up with your guess.  I'll give you a hint - my guess is wrong.  Once you have your guess click here and page down.

As you can see, the Democrats and Independents have trended down with close to the same slope.  As a consequence, Independents have a level of approval (56%) comparable to a couple of weeks before 9/11, but the Democrats have a level of approval (50%) well above their pre-9/11 level.  Republicans have no downward trend - their level of approval has stayed in the mid-90's since 9/11.

This raises lots of questions for me - why hasn't Dubya's approval from Democrats dropped more sharply than that from Independents?  There is only a 6% difference now compared to ~20% before 9/11.  Why is the Republican support steady?  Surely Republicans also have had a hard time finding jobs, have had their retirement portfolios better, have seen reports that crime is up and huge deficits are back?  Does Bush's position on a few key issues such as taxes, gun and abortion trump any questions about how the country is doing?  Knowing a little more shows me how little I do know.

8/24/2002; 10:30:03 AM: Why the Oregon fire damage photo-op is so ironic
Back in April, 2001, Dubya didn't go to see the crew of the spy plane when they returned to the US.  Michael Kelly wrote "Finally, a President who doesn't exploit the victim."  Cal Thomas wrote "Following a gregarious and seemingly omnipresent Bill Clinton, George W. Bush presents himself publicly only when he thinks it's necessary. He limits his exposure as one might horde food or energy, but for different reasons. Bush seems to view his office as something to be used for the good of others, not self-aggrandizement."  Back in those early days, back when the Dubya's administration's attitude was that adults are finally back in control, Dubya was above photo-ops for self-aggrandizement.  Now, he is doing little else.

8/24/2002; 8:12:44 AM: The WP has a good piece on our government's hypocrisy and the illegal imprisonment of two Americans.

8/23/2002; 10:03:10 PM: Krugman tears into the Dubya's budget lies
I really liked this little post that shows the total weaknesses in all of Dubya's excuses for the deficit.

8/23/2002; 10:00:07 PM:

The Incredible Shrinking Bush Presidency
The Dallas Morning News had a great article on today's front page that showed how much Dubya has shrunk lately.  Here is part of it on their website.  The web story cuts out two paragraphs about the protest.  Those paragraphs really changed the warm, fuzzy photo-op flavor of the story.  Then the environmental groups have their ducks in a row and tear Dubya's proposal to shreds.  Then we get to:
After his tour of the fire devastation, Mr. Bush told reporters, "What the critics need to do is come and stand right where I stand."

Saying the fires have wrought economic damage on ranchers, farmers and other residents, he said, "There are a lot of people in this part of the state that can't find work because we don't properly manage our forests."

Such expressions of presidential concern, combined with policy proposals, are a relatively recent creation but have become permanent part of politics in the television age, analysts said.

"Mostly, they show they care," said Charles O. Jones, a political scientist from the University of Wisconsin. "There is an expectation that the president – if not showing up personally – should at least express some concern."

Mr. Bush appears to be more comfortable with the concept now than earlier in his presidency, analysts added.

Just months after he took office, for example, he declined to attend the returning ceremony for U.S. military personnel who had been detained in China after their surveillance plane crash-landed on a Chinese island. And he did not visit Cincinnati after race riots last year.

Aides said that Mr. Bush wanted to give the servicemen time to reunite with their families and that he met with them later. And they noted that he has spoken out frequently on racial tolerance.

And then:
Smaller events, such as forest fires, require case-by-case discretion when it comes to presidential involvement, analysts said. No one wants to overdo it.

"Being appropriate to the moment is very important," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a specialist in political communication. "Does it look appropriate? Or does it look crass and exploitative?"

Reading the story, I got the feeling that Dubya has been reduced to using people's misery as a vehicle to shill for inappropriate pro-business policies.  To me, it does look crass and exploitative.  Back when the troops returned from China, I read several commentaries about Bush doesn't need to hog the spot light like Clinton did.  Now Bush is reduced to do "I care" events in an attempt to sell his uncompassionate policies.

8/23/2002; 7:42:29 AM: I found this letter to the editor in the interesting:
Why not Saudis?
When I read T.J. Knight's Aug. 18 letter, "Administration's foreign pals get a pass," I was flabbergasted! I could not believe what I read. I thought he was just fabricating an ugly, inflammatory story against the administration. So I called Mr. Knight to ask him where he got his information.

He told me he heard it on National Public Radio. Neither of us heard the report from any other news source. He, too, was upset by the report, so he researched the report thoroughly.

He told me to go the Department of Justice Web site and look at press release No. 466, dated Aug. 12 [Office of Public Affairs Press Releases]. I did, and it says, as part of the USA Patriot Act, all foreigners were to be fingerprinted and tracked during their stay in our country. They specifically named all the Middle Eastern countries that have known terrorists – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. Outstandingly conspicuous, by its omission, was Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabians do not have to be fingerprinted or tracked when entering this country. Yet, 15 of the 19 suicide bombers of Sept. 11 were Saudi Arabian nationals. Could someone please explain the logic and rationale of this to me?

With friends and allies like the Saudis, we cannot afford any enemies. But I guess this is the price we have to pay to have gasoline at the corner service station.

Alas, there is so little media coverage on the ugly details of the actions of Dubya's administration.

8/22/2002; 8:30:38 AM: Here is a good opinion piece about why there are celebrations of black culture and not white culture.

8/21/2002; 10:41:39 PM: Reviewing Old Critiques of Robert Samuelson
I wrote critiques of a couple of Robert Samuelson's columns way back in January, 2000. 

Here is one of his 1/3/2000 column:
One Line Summary - Clinton did almost nothing during his 8 years and should have done something about Social Security and Medicare

Primary Weakness - Really disses Clinton's contribution to the economy and to the surplus

Detail Summary - Clinton "so dominated the public stage and so little affected the public agenda." "His central failure" was not redrawing "the political compact between workers and retirees by modernizing Social Security and Medicare." Clinton didn't cause the drop in crime or the booming economy, and there is a federal surplus only because of defense cuts due to the end of the cold war. "Clinton mostly tinkered with the government." What he should have done was to defuse the major future problems of Social Security and Medicare. "In 1995, the Republicans bravely proposed overhauling Medicare", but Clinton "denounced" them for it. Clinton may have refused to reform these programs because he wants "the middle-class elderly ever-more dependent on government."

Critique - I have heard lot of excuses for how Clinton is not responsible for the booming economy and the deficit being turned into a surplus, but Samuelson's "As for the economic boom, it was largely self-propelled" takes the cake. To me, the economy boomed because Clinton was committed to reducing the deficit and increasing the real income of the poor. As unemployment for the poor dropped and their real income increased, many of them moved away from crime and welfare to the working world. Clinton caught some breaks (like the collapse of several Asian economies keeping inflation low while the economy was booming), but I can't see how anyone can seriously argue that Clinton doesn't deserve the lion's share of the credit for the record current economic boom.

Samuelson uses a funny way of determining how much Clinton saved from cuts in the military. Instead of comparing the military budget now to the military budget in 1992 in dollars adjusted for inflation, he compares the military budget as a % of GDP. But there is no link between our GDP increasing and our need for more military, and as GDP has greatly increased under Clinton, his method greatly overstates the amount of savings from military cuts.

I don't remember the Republicans suggesting much in the way of changes in 1995 other than to cut how much was paid for services. See this post on the Daily Howler. As you can see from this article, there is a very good reason for Clinton denouncing them. Samuelson ignores the Clinton administration's crackdown on Medicare fraud, which has greatly contributed to the rate of increase in Medicare costs staying under the rate of increase in medical costs for private insurance.

What really irks me is Samuelson stating the Clinton has done nothing to defuse the problems of Social Security and Medicare. As more people have joined the workforce and real wages have increased, the amount of money going to Social Security and Medicare has increased, putting off the time of their bankruptcy. Now that the government is running a surplus, it is possible to talk about using general funds to extend the life of these programs, to added needed new services to them like a prescription drug plan, or to fund the transition cost to a private Social Security system. Clinton is leaving these programs far more secure than they were 8 years ago, no matter how much Mr. Samuelson would like to believe otherwise.

Primary Weakness - Weak on economic facts and theory

Detail Summary - I [Samuelson] have always opposed a big tax cut, but now that there is a looming economic slowdown or recession, I am in favor of one. "...most commentators missed the economy's emerging weakness." Industrial production is down slightly, Christmas sales were miserable, auto sales have declined 8%, and Montgomery Ward went bankrupt. The Fed even had to cut interest rates. "A tax cut is now common sense" to give money to consumers so they can pay off their debts and make some purchases. Bush's tax cut is poorly designed to fight a recession because it is "back-loaded". Bush should accelerate the tax cuts while limiting the long term costs. Instead of phasing the tax cut in from 2002 to 2006, the tax cut should be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2000 and be in full force in 2002. "...the tax cut should be tilted more towards the bottom and less towards the top." The case for a tax cut assumes that the slowdown will be long, deep or both. Just as the current boom was unprecedented, so may its aftermath. The boom was driven by consumers and businesses spending beyond their means, and it can't continue, so it looks like the economy may be starting a prolonged readjustment. "It's self-defeating for government to exert a further drag through growing budget surpluses."

Critique - First off, I don't think Samuelson made his case for a looming recession. The economy is slowing from the third quarter's 2.7% growth rate, but there is no sign that the economy will actually shrink. Unemployment is at 4%. The private sector created 49,000 new jobs in December. Average earnings rose $0.05 for December, the rate it has averaged for the last 6 months. As long as unemployment is low and wages are rising, I think people are willing to continue to increase their debt (personal debt rose 10.2% in November). Profits are not as rosy as they once were, but most large companies are comfortably profitable.

What is really terrible about the article is that the argument is all the handwaving and no numbers. The size of Bush's tax cut was based upon forecasts that assumed a steady economic growth. If the economy is really slowing down as much as Samuelson claims, then a big tax cut would result in a large deficit. The forecasted surplus is mostly in the future, so accelerating the tax cut means a large deficit now. There is no attempt to quantify the cost of his tax cut.

Another sin Samuelson makes is to grossly simplify the economy - the only effect of a tax cut is more personal spending and the only effect of more personal spending is more economic growth. The economy is not that simple. If a tax cut happens, interest rates will probably go up because of the deficits and because the Fed will be concerned that, with unemployment so low, that the stimulus will cause severe inflation. Increased interest rates always slow down the economy. To argue intelligently for a tax cut means discussing ALL of its effects.

Lastly, the type of tax cut Samuelson is talking about - reducing marginal rates - will benefit the wealthy the most as they pay the most federal income tax. The poor rarely pay any federal income tax, though they pay a large portion of their income in social security tax, medicare tax, sales tax, property tax, etc. A far more just tax cut would be a refundable tax credit which would start out small for the poor, increase steadily to the median income of $40K, then decrease to zero at $80K. But my gut feel is that the whole "tax cut to fight off a recession" argument is a smokescreen to cover a plan to make the rich even richer.

Samuelson still gives Clinton no credit for the good things that happened to the economy and the country during his administration.  I missed the coming of the recession, but I was right about people continuing to spend.  I completely missed the huge job losses in 2001.  The tax cut did have bad consequences that Samuelson ignored, but it was long-term interest rates which have gone up because of the deficit, not short-term.  And I still believe that "the whole 'tax cut to fight off a recession' argument is a smokescreen to cover a plan to make the rich even richer."

8/21/2002; 7:50:25 AM: Link For Consumer Confidence Numbers?
I have a theory that the Bush team's prediction of a upcoming recession caused consumer confidence to plunge, which then did cause a recession.  I want to have some numbers to support the theory, but I don't have a source for consumer confidence numbers.  When I tried to find one before, I failed.  Please help!

8/21/2002; 7:18:13 AM: Article - Robert Samuelsons's 8/21 column in Washington Post

One Line Summary - Presidents have little effect on the economy

Primary Weakness - Has logic has huge holes in it

Detail Summary - People are blaming Clinton and Bush for the current economic woes. But Bush and Clinton aren't at fault. " Let's start with Bush." " Whatever its vices, the tax cut didn't cause the recession. Indeed, it helped check the slump." "The White House says that by the end of this year, the tax cut will have saved 800,000 jobs. Even if the estimate is high, its direction is right." "...Clinton can't be blamed for the economic bust unless he caused the preceding boom -- and he didn't. It rested on two pillars: low inflation and high business investment, mostly in computers and telecom equipment." "The person in the White House hardly affected the economy's main driving forces." "None of this means presidents are economically irrelevant. Ronald Reagan appointed Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; Bill Clinton reappointed him. Greenspan's stewardship helped repress inflation." Through regulations, taxes and spending, government can help or hurt the economy." "

Critique - Low inflation is a pillar of economic growth? Low inflation is typically a byproduct of poor economic growth. Japan had low inflation in the 90's and Dubya's administration has had low inflation, both with little economic growth to show for it. What was amazing about the Clinton boom was that unemployment went so low AND inflation stayed low. Prior the the Clinton years, the conventional wisdom I had read was that if unemployment fell below 5% or 5.5%, inflation would soar.

Why was there high business investment? Because Clinton raised taxes which reduced the deficit. The deficit reduction apparently freed up investment money, which caused long term interest rates to decline. Because of the lower cost of capital, businesses then were able to pursue more investment opportunities.

8/20/2002; 10:43:36 PM:

What if Clinton Had Bashed The Repuplicans For Their Divorces?
Imagine if Bill Clinton had in August 2000 lambasted the Republican party as the party of divorce.  He could have pointed out that Ronald Reagen and John McCain had divorced and remarried, and that Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr were on their third marriage.  Clinton could then contrast to his and Gore's still being married to their first wives.  Now, imagine how pundits would write about Clinton's attack.  Would the pundits mention Monica?  My guess is, you bet.

Why I bring this up is an opinion piece that does close to analyzing a Clinton speech on the importance of staying married without mentioning Monica - it analyzes Bush's talk in Waco on the deficit without once mentioning Bush's tax cut's contribution to the deficit.  Talk about ignoring the elephant in the living room.

8/20/2002; 7:07:52 AM: Some background on the Critiques of Editorials
I started posting them in Salon Table Talk prior to the election.  At that time, there were lots of opinion pieces in newspapers that used faulty logic or ignored key facts.  This really bothered me, so I start writing up the holes in the opinion pieces (Critiques of Editorials is really a misnomer as I really write critiques of opinion pieces).  Table Talk is great for small, conversational posts, but my larger posts didn't fit very well.  I never had any idea how many people read them and I rarely got a meaningful comment on them.

Salon changed to charging for being able to post to Table Talk, so I lost my platform for deliverying my critiques.  I stopped writing them for a while, but a few months ago I got back in the mood to write them again.  Salon then advertised their blogging service, and here I am.

The largest change from when I wrote for Table Talk is that there are (to me) a lot fewer really bad opinion pieces.  Now that we can see the effects of Dubya's policies, it is hard for most pundits to write how wonderful they will be.  As a consequence, I am writing more on bad new stories.

I hope to post twice a day - once before work and once after work.  I am getting 50-60 visitors a day.  While I would like a lot more, that is enough for now to keep me posting.

8/19/2002; 8:15:32 PM: AP Writing For The VRWC
There is a really atricious article in the USA Today. Here are the first three sentences: Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun building a national political organization, softening her liberal image and taking a lead role in Democratic criticism of President Bush — steps toward a potential campaign to become the first woman president. Former President Clinton speaks about his wife's run for the presidency as a matter of "when," not "if," say people who have discussed it with him. Several of her associates said she is eyeing 2008 as the year to run.

What is the support of these statements? Mainly a bunch of unsourced comments and unremarkable actions. Here's an example, "Her husband was at a small dinner party in February, in Perth, Australia, when someone asked if Sen. Clinton would run for president. One person described the former president's unhesitating reply, "Not in 2004," as reflexive, confident and leaving the clear impression that his wife had already decided to try in 2008." One unnamed person hears a three-word denial of presidential aspirations and that somehow morphs into a "clear impression" that Hillary will run? Another sign given that Hillary is going to run is that she "defended her husband's presidency against attacks from Republicans while sharpening her criticism of Bush." Isn't it just as likely that she defended her husband's presidency because she likes him? Haven't most Democrats sharpened their criticism of Bush?

Apparently to provide balance, the article makes comments that seriously undermine its first three sentences. If the author truly believes "It is impossible to characterize Sen. Clinton's prospects with any certainty; the sources close to her could be trying inflate her standing among Democrats or may be caught up in the Clinton-for-president speculation buzzing about the party's grass roots", then why unequivocally state she is taking steps toward a potential campaign for president?

8/19/2002; 7:28:01 AM:

It's The "Find All The Hidden Contradictions" Game!

Do you remember as a kid finding the hidden images in a picture?  Well, today we have a new game like that.  It's find all of the hidden contradiction in an article about Bush's economic policies.  Here's the article.  I find 5.  Try your luck.

My list:

1. Bush is struggling to keep federal deficits from growing even larger when Dubya has initiated or signed lots of spending such as the farm bill once it was known that the federal government was going to be running a defict
2. he used his weekly radio address Saturday to promote the no-deficits theme that emerged from the economic summit last week - no deficits?!?  The federal government is running an estimated $165 billion deficit
3. But he will, as he has shown this past week, insist on fiscal discipline - but the president has refused all calls for freezing future tax cuts, which are needed to restore fiscal discipline
4. Bush is examining ideas raised at last week's economic forum in Texas for fresh tax cuts for small investors that could form the basis of a new White House economic plan - Hold it!  This is a total contradiction of everything that was said before in this article!  How can the president be remotely serious about fiscal discipline when he is talking about another tax cut?  (I know, he can't)
5. If he does choose to pick new proposals that will stimulate the economy, we believe it's in the best long-term interest of the American people and the federal budget - Increased spending that increases deficits is bad, but tax cuts that increase the deficit are in the best long-term interest of the federal budget?

I keep expecting that the totally contradictory ideas that the Bush administration officials appear to hold at the same time will cause their heads to explode.

8/19/2002; 12:00:34 AM: Max Sawicky has a piece that estimates the impact of the 2001 tax cut on the drop in the projected surplus.  It is a bit too dependent for my taste on if estimate A was true and estimate B was true, the C is true.  Still, it is good to see someone doing this kind of thinking. 

8/16/2002; 7:00:39 AM: Article - James P. Pinkerton's 8/15 column in the LA Times

One Line Summary - Dubya’s detachment on the economy is a good thing

Primary Weakness - Misuses terms and doesn’t discuss any facts

Detail Summary - "The overall gist of the reportage [on the Waco economic forum] is that Bush is so detached from ordinary Americans that his reelection-minded advisors felt they needed to stage a show to fool people into thinking he really does care. But maybe detachment is not so bad. Maybe it's what we need." "once upon a time, this style of leadership was much admired. The French call it sang-froid--literally 'cold blood,' as in, don't get too hot about things." "in any case that froid-y style of leadership is out of fashion. Instead of the stiff upper lip of a Winston Churchill, we seem to want the bitten lip of a Bill Clinton." "The success of the economy depends on the noninterference of politicians. That was the great insight of 18th century French economists". "So they came up with the economic equivalent of sang-froid, which is laissez faire, or 'let people do as they choose.' And two centuries of economic history proves that the cool detachment of the state--leaving people the space to figure things out for themselves--is superior to warm-and-fuzzy intervening." Bush "is correct to think that the economy grows most when the government does least. That means holding the line on taxes and spending, as he has tried to do, in spite of the critics."

Critique - First, Pinkerton mistakenly defines cold-blooded as detached. Cold-blooded is staying calm in a crisis. Detached is being not physically or emotionally involved in a crisis. On 9/11, Giuliani showed cold-bloodness by braving the dangers of being physically present at the WTC .Bush showed detachment by flying in a secure plane from secure site to secure site.

Second, Pinkerton wrongly confuses laissez faire with lower government taxes and spending. Laissez faire is about the government regulation of and intervention in the marketplace. If Dubya stopped military spending and reduced personal taxes by a corresponding amount, taxes and spending would drop but that wouldn’t be a laissez faire action because the amount of government regulation or intervention wouldn’t change.

Third, he makes a huge, unsupported generalization - "two centuries of economic history proves that the cool detachment of the state--leaving people the space to figure things out for themselves--is superior to warm-and-fuzzy intervening." What about the Depression? What about Keynesian economics? How about Japan’s economic miracle?

Dubya’s economic forum must have been a real disaster if the best thing a Dubya supporter can come up with about it was that Dubya’s detachment from ordinary Americans may be a good thing.

Note: posted on 8/16 and on 8/18, corrected misspell of Giuliani

8/15/2002; 6:23:52 PM:

Dubya committed perjury - why has this story been ignored?

The weekend before the election, Salon.com ran a fascinating story - nearly indispitable proof that Dubya had lied under oath to a government official back in 1978 in order to get his driving privileges in Maine restored.  The key part of the article is:
The secretary of state's hearing examiner, David Schulz, granted Bush his driving privileges after Bush told him, according to the Boston Globe, that he had had only the "occasional beer."

Dubya's DUI conviction got heavy coverage just a few days before.  Clinton had recently been impeached for lying under oath in a civil case.  Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett's comments would make great material for late night comics.  The media had already exhausted just about every other story angle on Dubya and Gore.  But...but...but if you go to Google.com and enter bush "occasional beer", you will see that Salon was the biggest media outlet to report on it.

I remember when I read the story, I thought that the suffering through two years of the mainstream media constantly attacking Gore would finally be made worthwhile .  It was pay back time.  Time for the media to prove that it wasn't biased against Gore.  Time for the media to prove that it would go after a Republican's personal scandal as hard as they go after a Democrat's.

Boy, was I wrong.

8/14/2002; 8:40:32 PM:

The irony of being a dittohead

How the letter writer used the column in my previous post is wonderfully ironic.  Here is the letter:
I feel sorry for Bill Stoner. He has been tricked, deceived, misinformed. His letter [about how only NPR reported that Dubya's budget slashes the funding to the agency that rescued the coal miners while covering Dubya's visit to the coal miners] reveals just how far he has been sucked into the true tangled web of deceit his great National Public Radio blinded him with. Network television followed the story of the miners because it is significant news of the time. President Bush used their plight as a microcosm of the nation; when we face adversity, if we stick together, we will survive and be stronger. That is the underlying message.
If it is the truth Mr. Stoner seeks, I suggest he look back about two years. As reported by Robert Novak, the Clinton administration overestimated the economy by 30 percent – basically stating the economy was significantly stronger than it actually was. This makes Enron look like small potatoes. Did NPR reveal that full story? Probably not, because that would show deceit.
The truth is, Mr. Stoner, the nation knows the truth: President Bush is trustworthy, his popularity polls prove it. Let me suggest he listen to WBAP at 1 p.m. – Rush Limbaugh – to prevent avoid being easily deceived in the future.

Now if you read Novak's column, you know that he got the facts from it wrong.  It wasn't the economy that was overestimated, but a piece of the economy, the before-tax profits of domestic non-financial corporations. It was a 27 percent overestimation, not 30 percent. Clinton didn't have any involvement in the overestimation, that it was done career public servants in the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis. Finally, Mr. Novak admits that there has been no allegations or any evidence that the misestimation was anything other than a projection gone wrong.

The writer thought a prior writer was tricked, deceived and misinformed by NPR, but offers no evidence that the NPR story was wrong.  Instead, he presents a totally different story, apparently from Rush, about which he was misinformed and deceived.  Is there a better example of how misled dittoheads are?

8/14/2002; 8:37:11 PM:

You find what you want to know sometimes the oddest way

On 8/7, I wrote a post about some huge changes to 1999, 2000 and particularly 2001 GDP numbers.  As I said at the time, "The adjustments radically change the story of the economic development over the last two years."  Fast forward to today, when I was reading a letter to the editor.  The writer said that Robert Novak had reported that the Clinton administration overestimated the economy by 30 percent.  I found this curious, as everything I have seen as said that the Clinton administration was very conservative in their economic estimates.  I went to Google.com and found the Robert Novak.  Much to my surprise, it was about the recent changes to the GDP numbers.

Here is the column.  Novak tries to imply an evil Clinton conspiracy was behind the number correction (though he admits there are no facts to support the allegation), but when you get beyond that, it actually gives some details on what went wrong with the original GDP estimates.

8/14/2002; 7:47:04 AM: Here is a Washington Post story on "Bush's Plan For Social Security Loses Favor".  Despite lots of talk about Dubya's Social Secutiry Privitization plan from a political point of view, somehow the reporter overlooked the fact that no one has developed any details for the plan in the 3 1/2 years since it was proposed.

8/13/2002; 11:25:46 PM: Ari Fleischer said on 7/30:
"Of course, as the President has noted and as he said in his remarks today, that many of the measures that make up the strength of the economy are solid, and that includes low inflation, low interest rates, growth, the growth in the economy for the first quarter in excess of six percentage points. Tomorrow, there will be new figures released for what the economy grew in the second quarter -- I think it's tomorrow or maybe Thursday we get the newest GDP figures for second quarter growth. And so there are plenty of signs to look to in the economy to see the strength that the President sees."

The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced on 7/31 that the first quarter GDP growth had been revised down to 5% and that the second quarter GDP growth was only 1.1%

Dubya said on 8/7:
"The foundations for economic growth are strong in America. Inflation is low, monetary policy is good, productivity is up, there is growth in our economy"

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on 8/9 that productivity in the second quarter was only 1.1%, down from 8.6% in the first quarter

Please Dubya, quit talking about low inflation and low interest rates!  Keep it up and they will go next!

8/13/2002; 10:38:16 PM:

The Dallas Morning News has an opinion piece that is so bad it is funny.

Poor telemarketers - everyone hates them.  Blah, blah, blah.  "Why? Because it is claimed they invade the privacy of homes."

Claimed?!?  Like there is any doubt?

"Yet telemarketers gladly will disappear with a simple 'No, thank you.'"

After you have interrupted your dinner and you have wasted 2 minutes of your precious at-home time.  And then many of them won't accept no.

The same can't be said of gross TV ads at dinnertime promoting diarrhea medicines, male impotency, adult diapers and a host of other sickening conditions.

As my TV is off at dinnertime, I can't say I have ever been bothered then by TV ads.

"Consider this: Telemarketers contribute $662 billion to a shaky economy and provide 6 million jobs to employees so eager to work they endure daily humiliation."

1 out of every 22 jobs in America is due to telemarketing?  I don't think so.

Telemarketers are such wonderful people.  "One thing they almost all have in common is a fierce work ethic. They refuse to go on welfare. They are determined to work as hard as they can to secure a better life for themselves and their loved ones."

You can say the same thing about the people who work in the tobacco, liquor, gambling and legalized prostitution industries.  And legalized prostitution doesn't interrupt people's dinners.

"These people are good, hard-working Americans. They only ask a little tolerance. Is it too much to ask to treat them with respect and either listen to what they have to say or simply reply, 'No, thank you'? "

If they respected my quiet time at home, sure.

8/12/2002; 11:27:51 PM:

I recently read a wonderful The New Republic article that has a section that I think describes me very well.  I fall under the Professional component of the Democratic party.  "Professionals are highly skilled, white-collar workers, typically with a college education, who produce ideas and services."  "As a result, many professionals have come to draw a sharp distinction between their priorities and those of the market. Once advocates of laissez-faire capitalism, they have grown increasingly amenable to government regulation of business."

A point I would add is that professionals now are much more vulnerable to career downturns then they were 20 to 40 years ago.  Let's just say that the white-collar workers at Enron - who saw their retirement nest egg get wiped out due and then get let go while top management made millions and then got more in retention bonuses - are not going to be "advocates of laissez-faire capitalism".

8/12/2002; 10:46:00 PM: Links Make the (Blog) World Go 'Round

I started this blog on 8/7. I had no idea of what to expect, but I was hoping that somehow people would find my blog. Friday, I got over 100 hits, most of them from a link in Scott Rosenberg's blog and some of them from a link in Radio Free Blogistan. I also was linked to by a number of other Salon blogs ( WETW--Wiken's Eclectic Time Waster and filchyboy). I was thrilled to get that many hits, but I wasn't sure how long the Salon blogs would be a source of hits. In my early posts, I wrote a number of entries with links to Atrios' blog. Today, he returned the favor by linking to my blog, and that link has been a big source of hits. Thank you, Atrios! As I hope to have an audience similar to Atrios', I am hoping many of those readers will become "repeat customers".

8/12/2002; 10:04:48 PM:

A Double Hooray!

The first hooray is that I have some comments relating to my writings!  I was beginning to think that no one thought my stuff worth commenting on.  BobbyG commented on my short David Broder piece:

Actually, if you read Broder literally, he is correct: "For most of his presidency and, indeed, his political career, George Bush has enjoyed the reputation..." Whether Broder means that ironically or not, the fact is that Bush has enjoyed that REPUTATION -- whether it was deserved or not!

Why should Broder repeat what is reputed to be true but isn't?  Isn't it a journalist's job to inform the public.  The public thinks foreign aid is one of the federal government's top expenditures - can you imagine an article on federal budget with the line "the federal government has the reputation of making foreign aid one of its top spending categories" and the article not mention the truth?  I see it as a great way of saying Dubya is honest and sincere when you know he isn't.

Second hooray - I got my links to work again!  I just had to repeat the steps I had done earlier.

8/12/2002; 6:52:22 PM:

When Will the Media Say That Dubya's Social Security Privitization Plans Are Vaporware?

8/12/2002; 6:44:41 PM:

My Theme Ate My Homework

8/12/2002; 7:25:12 AM: Article - Charles Krauthammer's 8/9 Article in The Washington Post

One Line Summary - Cheney did nothing wrong

Primary Weakness - Ignores all the damning evidence

Detail Summary - "Today the market is down, and CEOs are bums." "As the Enron, WorldCom and other scandals unfold, {Cheney's] tenure has come under attack." The accusations are: He took the money and ran. "Cheney made millions when he sold his Halliburton stock in the summer of 2000. The stock then was worth more than $50 per share. It is now about $13." " But wait." "He was forced to sell his stock when he was chosen by George Bush to be his running mate." Dresser. "The latest charge is that Cheney engineered a merger with a competitor, Dresser Industries, that is now dragging down Halliburton because of asbestos liability." "But wait. How can this be construed as wrongdoing? Dresser may have learned about increased asbestos liability...just before the merger. But there is no evidence that Cheney knew. Moreover, the claims then brought against Halliburton by the former Dresser subsidiary "were largely resolved in Halliburton's favor" (New York Times, same story). The company is suffering now because of new claims from this ex-subsidiary that were not lodged until June 2001, long after Cheney had left the company. Moreover, as Mickey Kaus points out in Slate, the...asbestos liability is estimated at $43 million a year (over 15 years). Halliburton's revenues are $13 billion a year." Accounting shenanigans. "The charge that nicely associates Cheney with Enron-like thievery is an accounting rule that Halliburton changed during Cheney's tenure. Halliburton had been counting cost overruns on its construction projects as total losses (until payment was negotiated). In 1998 it began counting as revenue the estimated payments that it would likely get. The charge is that this prettied up Halliburton's bottom line." " But wait. The new method had become the industry norm." "Moreover, the effect on Halliburton's revenues was trivial. In 1998, the change increased them by $89 million -- on total revenues of $17 billion."

Critique - Krauthammer leaves out all the damning details:
He took the money and ran. - What people have accused Cheney of earning millions while running his corporation into the ground and using accounting shenanigans to hide the fact short-term. Whether Cheney was forced to sell his shares or not has nothing to do with the accusation. What is important is that the bad financial news was kept from the public until after Cheney sold his shares.
Dresser. - There was nothing illegal about Dresser - just stupid. The problem isn't that Cheney knew about the asbestos liability, it's that he didn't know about the asbestos liability. Cheney made the deal to acquire Dresser during a quail hunt with Dresser's CEO and that didn't do due diligence on Dresser's liabilities. According the NY Times, "some experts say that the asbestos-related liabilities Dresser brought to the company may end up driving Halliburton into bankruptcy." Because Cheney didn't perform his due diligence, he could mislead investors as to the health of Halliburton long enough to cash out. Ignorance was bliss. As for the $43 million a year over 15 years firgure, that is based upon Halliburton's estimate of the cost who is biased to understate the size of it and it is a $602 million pay out sometime over the next 15 years and not a fixed amount a year. Krauthammer compares the lawsuit cost, which will come directly out of profits, with revenue, a apples-and-oranges comparison to make the asbestos liabilities seem less significant.
Accounting shenanigans. - Again, Krauthammer talks about the size of the $100 million change relative to revenue and not what is important, profit. Again, from the NY Times, On Jan. 20, 1999, Halliburton reported sales of $4.3 billion and profit of $66 million for the fourth quarter of 1998, both down from the period a year earlier. Mr. Cheney acknowledged that the quarter had been difficult but said he was "optimistic about the long-term outlook for our industry and for Halliburton in particular." The change in policy enabled the company to book $89 million in unsettled claims as revenue in 1998, compared to a "de minimis" figure in previous years, Mr. Foshee said. Exactly how much of that revenue turned into profits for the company is not stated in Halliburton's financial reports. But the impact would have been significant had the company taken the alternative route of writing the cost overruns off as losses, wiping out more than half of its $175 million in pretax operating profits for the fourth quarter, when the accounting change took effect. The accounting change may be an appropriate one, however it is illegal to do make such an accounting change with informing the stockholders.

Summing up, Halliburton under Cheney illegally give itself on the sly a one-time $100 million boost to profits. Investors would have then overvalued the company, a boon to Cheney and any other Halliburton manager who sold stocks before the accounting change was made public. Cheney made millions of dollars as CEO while under his leadership the company made a merger that was going to push the company to the brink of bankruptcy.  Clinton was impeached for making some statements on an unimportant in an unimportant civil case.  Cheney took part in illegal activity involving millions of dollars and Krauthammer thinks is not significant enough to actually criticize the Vice-President.

8/11/2002; 10:10:01 PM: Kaus Goes Off The Deep End

I am beginning to be embarassed to admit that I use to read Mickey Kaus' weblog. His latest gyrations about Paul Krugman and the OMB are just unbelievable. Here are the events in the story:

0. The Bush administration has little credibility in economic matters (see here and here).
1. On July 12, The OMB distributed a press release that severely underestimated the percentage of the decline in the 10-year federal budget surplus caused by the Bush tax cut, claiming it was "less than 15%" rather than the 38 percent shown by the OMB's own data.
2. On July 25, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities sent out a press release catching the error.
3. On July 30, Paul Krugman wrote a column in the NY Times that said that the OMB lied in their press release.
4. On July 31, the OMB wrote a letter to the NY Times saying "The error, retracted weeks ago when noticed, assigned a true number to the wrong time frame" and "My office's first press release mistakenly applied the 10 percent figure to the 10-year estimated surplus, rather than to 2002."

At this point, Kaus took Krugman to task for saying that the OMB had lied when it was just a simple mistake. Krugman offered no proof that the OMB had lied other than references to OMB's repeated less-than-honest antics.

5. Later, Spinsanity talked to Trent D. Duffy, the OMB's communications director, who admitted that retraction was given only to reporters who contacted OMB about the original release -- there has never been a formal published retraction. Duffy also admitted that the release was not changed on the Web site until July 26. Lastly, Duffy admitted that 15 percent is an old, incorrect figure that he accidentally used, not a true number assigned to the wrong time frame.

So, the OMB's letter to the NY Times was a pack of lies. It seems a small step to assume that OMB's original use of the wrong number was not inadvertant. However, Kaus concludes that the OMB admitting (under duress) that they their letter to the NY Times was a pack of lies totally exonerates the OMB! And then Kaus calls the OMB's lying through their teeth a failure "not-entirely-dissimilar" to Krugman's not retracting his accusation that the OMB lied!

Update: Evidence that Kaus has apparently gone completely over to the dark side: he was quoted approvingly by Charles Krauthammer and then Kaus wrote an approving link to a Peggy Noonan story.

8/10/2002; 8:24:08 AM: I adjusting my blog this morning - changing the theme, adding more links and a "story".  I am hoping to use the stories to move my archives over to this web page

8/10/2002; 7:21:37 AM:

George Will pulls off the unusual feat of discussing the need for Congress to declare war on Iraq without ever mentioning the Bush administration.  Clearly, if the Bush administration announced that they were going to ask Congress for a declaration of war before invading Iraq, then there would be nothing to write about.  If Will thinks Bush is about to violate the constitution, why does he just say so?

8/9/2002; 10:05:43 PM:

An interesting bit off the MaxSpeak blog:

MARY HAD A LITTLE SCAM. My friend Jim C. at the excellent Rittenhouse Review wants me and DeLong to come down on VP Cheney's counselor Mary Matalan for claiming that "every single economist agrees” that the recession of 2001 would have been “longer and deeper” were it not for the Bush administration’s tax cut and “stimulus package.” Ho hum. At this past May's meetings of the National Tax Association, a panel presented three different papers claiming the opposite -- that the tax cuts were harmful to growth. DeLong blogged one of them here a while ago. The other papers were by Douglas Elmendorf and David Reifschneider of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, not exactly a hotbed of left-wing thought, and Eric M. Engen of the American Enterprise Institute, ditto. Kevin Hassett, also of AEI, was a discussant on the panel and took no exception to the findings.

How could a tax cut reduce growth? Because higher long-term deficits could increase long-term interest rates, thereby discouraging investment in the here and now. I happen to doubt the importance of this, but Mary's claim of unanimous acclaim among economists for the tax cut is beyond ludicrous.

8/9/2002; 9:17:04 PM:

I almost fell out of my chair when I read the second paragraph of this recent David Broder piece:

For most of his presidency and, indeed, his political career, George Bush has enjoyed the reputation of saying what he means and meaning what he says.

The man who described his give away to the rich as "a middle tax cut" says what he means and means what he says?  The man who talked on and on about bipartisanship but has torpedo every bipartisan idea to come out of the Senate?  The man who promised a "responsibility era" but blames his predecessor for everything bad that happens during his watch?  If there is one person is says what he doesn't mean and means what he didn't say, it's George W. Bush.

8/9/2002; 8:18:00 PM:

As kind of a follow up to my last post, here is Dubya's comments on his tax cut from his July 15th economic speech:

And if you're interested in recovery -- if you're interested in recovery of the job base, it is important for us to remember who creates most of the jobs: and those are the small business owners in America. And that's why I fought so hard for a tax cut for the American people. I believe when you cut taxes, it spurs economic growth, particularly in the small business sector. (Applause.)

Most entrepreneurs are not incorporated. Most small businesses are what they call sole proprietors or limited partnerships. And so they pay tax like an individual pays tax. And so when we reduce the taxes on the individuals, we reduce the taxes on small business growth. It was important to do that. I remember the outcry, of course, because if you want more money in Washington, you don't want to let the people keep their own money. So they started quoting these textbooks that said, when times are slow, raise taxes; when times are slow, don't let the people keep their money.

The textbook I read says that if we let you have your own money, you'll decide to spend it on a good and service. And if you decide to spend it on the good and service, somebody will produce the good and service. And when somebody produces the good and service, it means somebody is going to find work.

In the tax relief plan, we reduced the marriage penalty. (Applause.) We reduced the alternative minimum tax which affects many small business owners. And we did something else that's important -- it's important for all small business owners -- and that is we eliminated the death tax. (Applause.) I say we eliminated the death tax. By a quirk of the Senate rules, the death tax, however, isn't eliminated after 10 years. That's a hard one to explain. (Applause.) We eliminated it, but didn't eliminate it.

So for the good of long-term planning, for the good of the entrepreneurial spirit, for the good of allowing people to pass their business, farm, or ranch to whoever they want to pass it to, we need to make the tax cuts that we put in place permanent. (Applause.)

Dubya says that cutting the taxes on the profit small business owners make will result in small business owners hiring more people.  Now, if I am a small business owner who is making $60K a year profit and my taxes drop from $15K to $13K, why would I hire another person in my business?  There is no direct link between the two.

Dubya next says that cutting taxes will result in increased demand and that increase demand will result in more jobs.  That is true, but by the same token, the government could spend the same money and the same spending will increase jobs.  Now if the government creates jobs through spending, the people who are going to most benefit are those formerly without jobs.  If it is done through a income tax tax cut, it will most benefit those in the top 60% of incomes (they are the ones who pay income tax).  So Dubya's method of increasing demand is less equitable than the alternative of increasing spending.

The "allowing people to pass their business, farm, or ranch to whoever they want to pass it to" is also bogus.  The Republicans will talk on and on about the need to eliminate the "death tax" to "save the family farm", but no one instance can be found of a family having to sell the farm in order to pay inheritance tax.  For small businesses, the same holds true.

8/9/2002; 8:07:52 AM:

The standard Republican lies about the economics of tax cuts

I wrote this at the end of May and posted it as a comment to a weblog.  The stock market's recent plunge makes it really apropos today.

Tax cuts encourage investment
The Truth Part 1 - Tax cuts always decrease investment
For example, let's say the government gives a wealthy person a $100 tax cut.  Now, the wealthy person will spend some of the $100, put some of it in non-investment financial instruments like cash and his checking account, and he will invest some of it.  Say he invests $50.  The Republicans then proudly say, "Look, the tax cut created $50 of investment."  But were did the $100 come from?  The government had to borrow it from someone.  Say the government borrowed it from the same wealthy person.  Were is the wealthy person going to get the $100 from?  From selling his other investments.  So in this case, the amount of money in our simple example that the weathy person has invested decreases by $50.  Because the government has to borrow from investors to make up for the reduced amount of tax revenue, a tax cut will always decreate the total amount of money invested.

The Truth Part 2 - Tax cuts discourage long-term investment
What has happened recently (the 90's and later) is that bond investors respond to a decreasing government deficit by decreasing long-term interest rates and respond to an increasing government deficit by increasing long-term interest rates.  There are economic theories that suggest why this should happen and there are economy theories that suggest this shouldn't happen, so I am going to go on recent experience.

Long-term interest rates are a major factor in whether corporations make long-term investments.  Let's say a corporation is considering a project that, when the rate of return is adjusted for risk, pays back 7% over 30 years.  If the long-term interest rate is 6%, the company will make the investment.  If the long-term interest rate is 8%, the company won't do it.  Part of the reason there has been little business investment in 2002 is that the long-term interest rates are up.

The Truth Part 3 - Tax cuts discourage foreign investment
This is weak, but could become important.  Foreigners invest in the US because they think the economy is well run and will produce better long-term returns than other countries.  If the US government does things that give foreign investors more confidence, then more foreign investment will come into the US.  The amount of foreign investment money dwarfs the amount of money involved in a tax cut.

Now here is the weak part - one could argue that foreign investors will be spooked by a government that seems to have lost control of the deficit.  There are lots of other factors that drive foreign investor confidence such as the reliability of company financials.  But according to a recent Krugman column, all of the factors are pointing in the wrong direction and foreign investors have started pulling their money out of the US.

Tax cuts for high-earners encourage them to work hard and longer
The Truth - Tax cuts encourage high-earners to work less
Let's say I am a consultant who works 48 hours a week at a $100/hour, with an effective tax rate of 30%.  That means my net pay is $3,360 per week.  Let's say that my effective tax rate drops to 20%.  I can now earn the same net pay in 42 hours a week.  By economic theory, because I value free time, I will substitute some of the hours I was working for free time.  With the new tax rate, I will work somewhere between 48 and 42 hours per week based upon how much I value free time.

Tax cuts for the wealthy encourage entrepreneurship
The Truth  - Tax cuts for the wealthy discourages enterpreneurship
The Republicans say that tax cuts for the wealthy encourages entrepreneurship because people will work harder to hit it rich.  The number one thing that keeps people from starting their own company is a lack of initial capital.  I have already discussed how tax cuts decrease the amount of investment money, and that will make raising initial capital harder.  I have already discussed how tax cuts drive up long-term interest rates, and higher long-term interest rates make starting a new company more difficult.  Now part of that initial capital usually is the entrepreneur's own money.  To raise that money, they have to save it while working their current job, which is probably not over $100K per year.  By shifting the tax burden away from the wealthy (which is what tax cuts for the wealthy does), it slows the rate of capital accumulation of the non-wealthy and therefore decreases their ability to raise the initial capital they need to start a new business.

Reduced capital gains tax encourages entrepreneurship
The Truth - Reduced captial gains discourages entrepreneurship
Capital gains tax applies to all investments, risky or not.  Most entrepreneurs draw their money out of the business in a form that is taxable as salary, not capital gains.  The only way an entrepreneur can draw money out of their business in a form that captial gains would apply is if they sell their business or if they take their business public and then sell part of their stock in the business.  So, let's say you have $1,000,000 and could invest it in stocks or start your own business.  The stocks earn a 6% appreciation and a 28% capital gain.  You could pay yourself a $60,000 salary (6% of 1,000,000) which would taxed at 40%.  The stocks would earn you a net $43,200.  The job would earn you a net $36,000.  The larger the spread between captial gains tax and salary tax, the greater discouragement to entrepreneurship.

Tax cuts for the wealthy is the best way to grow the economy
The Truth - Tax cuts for the poor is the best way to grow the economy
Republicans say that tax cuts for the wealthy is the best way to grow the economy because they will wisely invest the money and therefore create new jobs.  I have already discussed how tax cuts decreases the amount of money invested.  I have already discussed how tax cuts for the wealthy actually discourages entrepreneurship and encourages high-earners to work less.  Another problem with giving money to the wealthy is that they don't need anything so they are slow to spend it.  Give it to someone who is poor and they will spend it immediately.  As most people spend their money in their neighborhood and Americans tend to live in areas according to their wealth, the poor will spend their money in poor neighborhoods where the people who receive it will in turn immediately spend it.  This means that the amount of economic activity generated by a tax cut to the poor is much greater than the economic activity generated by a tax cut to the wealthy.  Increased economic activity means more jobs and more tax revenue.  So tax cuts for the poor will generate far more jobs than the equivalent tax cut for the wealthy.

I am not an economist and have only taken economic classes while getting my MBA.  But most of this is common sense.

8/9/2002; 6:52:15 AM:

I Am Somebody!  I Have Been Linked To!

I have been linked to by Scott Rosenberg and Radio Free Blogistan.  Thanks for the traffic!

8/8/2002; 9:39:41 PM: A thanks to Rajesh for a link  that documented how to add a list of my favorite links.  That makes it a lot more "homey".  Tomorrow's challenge - to replace the current header with the graphic from my archive.

8/8/2002; 9:28:06 PM: Atrios has some interesting material on Saletan's slamming of Gore. On his page, you can see that during the campaign, Saletan was very supportive of Gore's populist strategy.

8/8/2002; 8:09:10 PM: A priceless quote I found on Table Talk:

"My wife told me not to vote for Al Gore in Florida. Because, if I did, he would win the election. The stock market would crash, the employment rate would go down, the dollar would fall and the economy would fall apart. She was right on everyone of those things. I did vote for Al Gore, he did win the election, and all those bad things happened."

It is apparently from James Carville from his 7/21 speech to the Florida Dems. I would love to get a T-shirt with this quote on it.

8/8/2002; 7:56:25 PM:

This morning's editorials in my local paper (the Dallas Morning News) that criticize the Bush administration: 0.

The DMN had a piece about the upcoming economic summit that could have been interesting.  It talked about Bush's economic summit and then talked about Clinton's economic summit.  It would have been interesting to contrast Clinton's economic summit with Bush's first and upcoming economic summit, but Leubsdorf for the most part dropped the ball.  I don't remember much about Clinton's economic summit, but the article talked about that was when Clinton changed his economic plan to deficit reduction and used his summit to sell that new plan.  Bush's first economic summit was little more than a private thank-you party for big fund raisers, who then made statements to the press praising Bush's economic plan.  It sounds like Bush's upcoming summit will be a cheerleading camp for Bush's failing economic policies.

8/8/2002; 6:26:13 PM: I am going to post a draft version of this, and then follow up later with links and updates:

Bush Scandal Summary

Harken - Bush still hasn't allowed the SEC to release all documents related to their investigation of Bush. Bush still has released the minutes from the Harken Board of Directors meetings that Bush told reporters to read.

Halliburton - Cheney still hasn't been interviewed by the SEC.

Enron - 247 days since Enron's collapse and still no arrests.

9/11 - Time ran a story that the Clinton administration had given Bush a detailed plan for systematically taking out Al-Queda but the Bush administration never acted on it. Rice responds that the Bush administration wanted a plan for eliminating Al-Queda, not rolling it back. Rice ignores that the actions after 9/11 followed the Clinton administration plan. Rest of the media seems to be ignoring the Time story.

Bush's Bogus Budget Accounting - Krugman's latest column chastises the OMB for their unsupportable attacks on him and their bogus correction. Rest of the media is ignoring that the budget projections are totally pie-in-the-sky.

Energy Task Force - the government is still wasting huge amounts of tax payer money in a losing cause to keep the member list secret

Crooks in the AdministrationSecretary of the Army White is still there despite all the evidence that his group at Enron seriously cooked the books. The "Brooks Brother Rioters" turned out to be employees of the Bush Recount Committee. None of them have been arrested and most wound up with jobs in the White House. Bush's 8/6 recess appointee Dorr is guilty of receiving farm subsidy payments that he and his family shouldn't have received. His defense is that everyone does it.

The War on Civil Liberties - The Justice department lost once again in court on keeping secret the list of non-citizens who have been detained.

Bush's Phony War on Terrorism - Despite all of the President's and Vice-President's rhoertic that they country is at war, they feel the "war" isn't of sufficient importance to put their personal vacation plans on hold.

Nothing here for pundits to write about - time to trash Gore's Op Ed in the NY Times.

8/7/2002; 11:39:50 PM: It is sad to see one of my favorite bloggers, Bob Somerby, whacking on another of my favorite bloggers, Josh Marshall.  You have to scroll down to see the last of a series of have-ats.  What Somerby says about Marshall is correct, however there are lots of other journalists who are far more worthy of getting whacked on.

8/7/2002; 10:28:41 PM: Posting is really easy with this software, but I want to add a little more like a list of my favorite links and I can't figure out how to do it without doing some major HTML work.

8/7/2002; 10:15:01 PM: Article - William Saletan's review in Slate.com of Al Gore's NY Times Op Ed

One Line Summary - "Al Gore's bogus defense of his populist message"

Primary Weakness - Forgets that Al ran in 2000, not 1992

Critique - Saletan's opening line is "When a vice president backed by a roaring economy runs a class-warfare presidential campaign and loses, most people would call the experiment a failure." But why would most people call it a failure? My memory is that Bush lead Gore in every early poll. According to the Daily Howler, "Gore’s first campaign trip—to New Hampshire—occurred on March 15, 1999. The next day, CNN/Gallup/USA Today released its new national poll: Bush 56, Gore 41." So, once Al Gore started running his "class-warfare" political campaign, he gained 15 points in 8 months. His acceptance speech was strong on "people vs. powerful" rhetoric and it gave him his first lead in the polls. If a pundit is going to call a message "lousy politics" and that "it illustrates his ineptitude as a candidate", he needs some strong facts to back them up like Gore losing a big lead, lots of voters saying they decided against voting against Gore because of his message, or Gore losing voters that a democratic candidate should expect to have. Instead, all Saletan offers it some poll that I think lacks true relevance - the poll is all voters, not swing voters and the reasons give for doing something are rarely the reasons for why the actually do something.

Saletan thinks that Gore' populism should have been like Bill Clinton's. However, the environment in 1992 was much different than the environment in 2000. In 1992, the unemployment ran from 7.3% to 7.8%, the country had just gone through a recession, there had been major deficits for many years and no end to the deficits in sight. His opponent's biggest weakness was that he didn't seem to understand people's plight in a down economy. So Clinton's statements of "One sentence in the platform we built says it all: 'The most important family policy, urban policy, labor policy, minority policy and foreign policy America can have is an expanding, entrepreneurial economy of high-skill, high-wage jobs'" and "We don't have a person to waste. There is no them; there is only us" are very apropos for a down economy and high unemployment, but they don't fit the environment in 2000. In 2000, unemployment ranged from 4.1% to 3.9%. Millions of people were moving off of welfare and into real jobs. The government was projecting a huge surplus and the biggest question was "How is the surplus going to be divided?".

Saletan also ignores that Gore was running not against a moderate Republican like Clinton had but against an ultra conservative who was trying to hide the lopsided nature of his policies. Dubya's answer to "How is that surplus going to be divided?" was mainly to the richest 1%, but he tried to hide that fact by calling his tax a "middle class tax cut". Gore's "people vs. powerful" theme emphasized that Dubya had long favored rolling back regulations to aid corporations to a degree that would make voters uncomfortable if they fully understood. As the press showed no interest in telling voters what Bush's policies really were, it was up to the Gore campaign to educate the voters on how extreme they were. Bush made his policies sound like everyone would be better off ("Every day is Earth Day when you own your own property") and Gore had to make the case that Bush was really talking about helping "Big Tobacco, Big Oil, the big polluters, the pharmaceutical companies, [and] the HMOs."

But Saletan really undermines his argument by viciously attacking Gore when no such attack is warranted. Gore wrote an Op Ed that said I told you that if Bush was president that the powerful would benefit and the average joe would get stiffed. Saletan ignores completely whether Gore is right. Saletan seems much more interested in calling Gore and his campaign "a failure", "inauthentic and grating", inept, pious and that "his driving imperative is to prove that he's right and his opponents are wrong." Saletan calls Gore's populism "class-warfare" for no reason (Bush's policies are really class-warfare - by the rich). I read some of Saletan's other articles and there was none of that ad hominem attack even though I feel the subjects are far more worthy (Daschle's inability to wound Bush, Bush's stonewalling on scandals).

The big story of the 2000 election wasn't Gore's populist theme, but the media's constant attacks on Gore while giving Bush a free ride. It seems that some things never change.

8/7/2002; 6:26:52 PM:

An Economic Mystery

8/7/2002; 6:14:36 PM:

I am disappointed that no pundit I have read has mentioned Jenna Bush's summer internship at Brillstein-Grey, a management firm for Hollywood stars.  How did the two connect - did Brillstein-Grey track down Jenna in Austin and offer her a job or did Jenna use her family connections to request a job of Brillstein-Grey?  Is Brillstein-Grey using this as a backdoor method of buying influence with the Bush family?  How much did the job pay?  What type of political favors have the Bushes done for Brillstein-Grey?  I doubt these questions have been asked of the Bush family and I am sure that they would say that Jenna is a private person so the answers are not for the public.

This is the type of favor swapping that the rich and powerful use to make their kids rich and powerful.  When Dubya ran for governor and president, a big part of his credentials was that he had been a business man.  When you look into it, he was not qualified for any of the business positions he held and he did a poor job in each of them except as General Managers of the Rangers.  However, the fact that he held the position was used as a justification for giving him the next position when the reality was that people were trying to buy influence with the elder Bush.

I saw this personally once.  I was an accountant at a company and the CFO were I worked was married to a Big 5 partner.  A fellow partner asked our CFO to give his daughter a summer job in the accounting department.  We hadn't planned on having a summer intern but interns are cheap and she was given the internship without an interview.  Now when she looked for her next job, she had a leg up over her peers because she had accounting work experience.  I would be willing to bet that her work experience and her dad's connections resulted in a much better position coming out of college than the rest of her peers.

So why hasn't the media look into yet another use of the Bush family connections?    We know that when the elder Bush was vice-president and president, people threw huge amounts of money at his children in an attempt to buy political influence.  Why isn't the media looking into a possible repeat now?

8/7/2002; 8:01:48 AM: Despite the fact that the Bush administration has recently constantly trotted out the line the "economic fundamentals are sound", the only place where I have seen a comment on whether the our current economic fundamentals are sound is MaxSpeak's Weblog.  I don't know how to link to the individual item, so search the webpage for "sound".

8/7/2002; 7:45:46 AM:

This is going to be a weblog devoted to short-but-sweet criticisms of political editorials.  I had posted a number of these in the Table Talk forums back when they were free, but a Blog is probably a better channel for delivery of such pieces.

This morning's editorials in my local paper (the Dallas Morning News) that criticize the Bush administration: 0.  That criticize Al Gore: 1. 

© Copyright 2002 Unrelated Disney. Last update: 9/4/2002; 8:04:47 PM.