When I first began my Politi-Psychotic posts, I realized that there were some journalistic rules that should be followed, to provide an appropriate framework and order for readers to understand what I was talking about. For example, putting a cropped screenprint of the actual graphic of the PolitiFact ruling at the top of the post. Even my tables breaking down Bryan White’s Grading PolitiFact critiques are part of this; providing a link to the PolitiFact article, identifying who wrote it, etc.
Sometimes the way I might do a post is to find some links, write some comments, and then try to connect the dots to tie it all together. Sometimes I give up because it doesn’t tie together very well, and looks too disjointed. Sometimes, I do my best with it and publish it anyway, especially if I know I’ve adequately addressed the crux of whatever I am writing about.
This recent post by Bryan on a ruling by PolitiFact Virginia exemplifies that point. But it’s not Bryan I’m talking about. The writer/researcher, Warren Fiske, needed to provide more explanation. Some of the writing seemed disjointed. Unfortunately, it provided a veritable feast of errors and slips and omissions for which Bryan White made a proverbial glutton of himself. In doing so however, Bryan missed the heart of the ruling itself, and appeared to shoot himself in the foot with his reliance on boilerplate Republican talking points.
So let’s take a hard look at Bryan’s laundry list of the God "awful journalism" (quoting him) of this particular ruling by PolitiFact:
Cantor, like many Republicans, says raising the highest income bracket will penalize small businesses… **"The question is are we going to raise taxes on small businesses right now, when we’re looking at those very individuals, those small businesses, to create jobs," Cantor, the soon-to-be House majority leader, said on CNN. "I don’t think many people think that’s a good idea."** …Already there's a problem that will go unnoticed by most. The context of the Cantor quotation above provides no indication that he was talking only about the highest income tax bracket. The context suggests that he was talking about all of the Bush tax cuts.
Well, was Cantor only talking about the highest income bracket? Reading the complete lead-up by Fiske, he says
In addition, Cantor wrote in a Sept. 20 Op/Ed in the Wall Street Journal "roughly half of small business income in America will face a higher rate" if the Bush tax cuts die.
Since Cantor is playing a huge role in the national debate on taxes, Virginia PolitiFact examined his claims.
Note the plural claims (emphasis added above). Fiske was examining Cantor’s multiple statements taken in context regarding the effect (according to Republicans) on small business of letting the tax cuts expire for the top two income brackets, which was part of Obama’s presidential campaign proposals, and continues to be his plan today (as one can see from just reading the news!). Fiske leaves a blank, however, on the substance of Cantor’s “huge role in the national debate on taxes.” Bryan claims he was not a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal, so did not know what was contained in the WSJ article cited by Fiske. Here are the parts pertaining to “small business tax cuts” and in particular, which income brackets Cantor was referring to (emphasis added).
President Obama's impending tax increase is not just a hike on a few "millionaires and billionaires," as the White House tries to frame it. Roughly half of all small business income in America will face a higher rate, making this tax increase a direct assault on job creation and innovation.
“President Obama’s impending tax increase” on “millionaires and billionaires” pretty well establishes that Cantor wasn’t talking about keeping the tax cuts in place for everybody. Remember, he said this in response to the question will the tax cuts be kept in place for only certain people and not everybody, implying a difference, with his answer being emphatically for everybody. And the “small business” references are everywhere.
Bryan says: “misrepresenting fact check in title:” The heading is “Eric Cantor says expiration of Bush tax cuts will raise small business taxes.” It should probably say “Eric Cantor says expiration of top-bracket Bush tax cuts will raise small business taxes.” I’ll make a concession on Fiske’s neglect with leaving that descriptor out, but leaving out those words does not change the ruling itself.
Bryan says: “ruling incorrectly on fact check in title.” Now this is just plain silliness. OF COURSE taking the statement on its face makes it true. We now know the context was the top tier incomes , and the “top bracket” descriptor was not included, for whatever reason. So “ruling incorrectly” on an “incorrect” title is irrelevant. Bryan is parsing here—because Fiske left out a descriptor, he’s now completely ignoring the “underlying argument.”
Bryan says: “inappropriate *highest bracket* fixation:" is clearly now appropriate…Bryan really needed to get access to the full Wall Street Journal article. (By the way, you don’t have to subscribe, either.)
It should be noted that the figures thrown around by Republicans with regard to Democrat’s “small business tax hikes” have been fact-checked a number of times. They seem to repeat the same mistake which “wrongly assumes that the non-wage income of all top earners comes from small businesses” over and over. Click here to read how McCain did the same thing in 2008. Which leads to Bryan’s next item...
Bryan says: “the percentage/net business income faux pas” boils down to this statement from the PF ruling as noted by Bryan: "…Cantor consistently takes IRS data on the percentage of top earners who report some business income and says it comes from small business."
Bryan says: “the percentage/net business income faux pas” boils down to this statement from the PF ruling as noted by Bryan: "…Cantor consistently takes IRS data on the percentage of top earners who report some business income and says it comes from small business."
Why is Fiske emphasizing this? Because Republicans seem to misuse the “small business as [greatly exaggerated large] part of upper income” data a lot, as shown in the links above and other fact checks done as far back as 2003, and of course even now.
Bryan says: “offering opinion without supporting evidence on Cantor's supposed pattern.” Well, we just did that with all these links showing Cantor’s pattern is straight out the Republican “small business” propaganda machine.
Bryan says: “using mean where the median was the right statistical reference point.” This reminds me of a story told by the diminutive Robert Reich on averages: he said he’s about 5 feet tall, and if you were trying to compute average male height and it was only him and a 7 foot tall basketball player, it means between him and the player the average male height is 6 feet. Bryan stated “This would have been a fine time for PolitiFact to use the median figure for the business income.” Well, great, but a link to “Dr. Salary” isn’t going to get me those median numbers. He only gives a cute definition of what a median is. So I’m guessing Bryan couldn’t come by them either.
One last comment. In my Politi-Score analysis, PolitiFact Virginia was found to be a bit different from the other PolitiFact state sites in that its sponsoring publication (Richmond Times-Dispatch) was a Republican endorser (had endorsed McCain in 2008 and Bush in 2004), and its recent Campaign 2010 Politi-score for Republicans versus Democrats, unlike PolitiFact National or Florida, favored Republicans. There was also a note at the end of the this ruling in parentheses “(Cantor’s wife, Diana F. Cantor, is a member of the board of directors of Media General Inc., parent company of the Richmond Times-Dispatch).” So…..maybe that Barely True should have been a False or Pants on Fire, and Bryan should be glad Cantor was only ruled Barely True. Or maybe Fiske messed it up on purpose?
| Title and Link | Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would raise taxes on small businesses. |
| Who? Affiliation | Eric Cantor (Republican House Majority Leader, 2011-), Virginia |
| Ruling | Barely True |
| Checkers | Warren Fiske (Writer/Researcher); Daniel Finnegan (Editor) |
| # of words | 1,063 |
| #Sources Cited | 11 |
| Argument Summary | Eric Cantor claimed in an interview that Obama’s tax “increase” (allowing only the upper brackets of the Bush tax cuts to expire on schedule in 2011) would result in “Roughly half of all small business income in America”… “facing a higher rate of taxation.” He was using IRS data on the percentage of top earners who report some business income and said it comes from small business, which is not accurate because various estimates/studies show a very small percentage of upper income is actually *small* business income, so his statement was ruled “Barely True.” |
| Bryan’s Argument | Bryan pointed out a ruling “rife with errors” starting with the title not making a distinction as to the tax cuts (the top tier) expiring, but his main argument was that in stating there were unknowns in the data, PF could not make a ruling based on “uncertainty.” |
| Quick Interpretation | There has been some research on this and other fact-checking sources have ruled the same way, because this is a common Republican claim about raising taxes in relation to small business. |
| My criticism: | An omission in the title does not the whole ruling make, however glaring. And sloppy writing does not reverse a valid conclusion. |
| Guidelines | In this case, Number 1 *in reverse*--omitting the descriptor “top bracket” or “top tier” was reason (for Bryan) to dismiss the entire underlying point or argument. |
| Rhetorical Devices/Logic fallacies | None that would make a difference in this ruling. |
| DOES IT CHANGE THE RULING? | To ignore the descriptor makes the ruling True "on its face." |
| My view | I agree with Bryan on the sloppy writing; but again, it does not change the ruling. |
| Comments | As noted in my write up, the ruling noted at the end that Eric Cantor’s wife , Diana Cantor, “is a member of the board of directors of Media General Inc., parent company of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.” Also, the Richmond Times-Dispatch appears to have Republican leanings in view of its Republican endorsements. |
| Consequences of Bryan’s interpretation (What I have to believe if he is correct) | Because of the omission of “top tier” in the title and the lack of clarity in the writing, Warren Fiske misrepresented Eric Cantor’s comments that “Roughly half of all small business income in America” are “facing a higher rate of taxation.” Eric is talking about expiration of ALL the tax cuts, not just the upper tier, even though he makes many references to the tax “increases” as being Obama’s, which are only for the top tier. And because the percentage of small business income cannot be ascertained precisely for those top tier earners, PF should not make rulings on uncertain data, even though it has been approximated closely by many other studies and fact-checks. |
| Bryan’s Grade | Five Pepes for jumping the shark again. |
| PF Grade | Five Pepes for sloppy writing, which was possibly deliberate? |
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