PolitiFact Detractors: Your AIM is Way Off

Whoever owns (Logan Churchwell) Accuracy in Media (AIM), as it calls itself, probably just loves Cliff Kincaid, the writer of this recent AIM fact-check of the fact-checker, in this case, the Washington Post’s Fact Checker (Glenn Kessler). He really knows how to take “fairness” and “balance” (where have I heard that before?) in media to the upper stratosphere of politi-psychotics. Cliff may not have known that PolitiFact weighed in as well (seconding the False) on fact-checking Michele Bachmann’s statement that the August 5 S+P downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt proved her right that the debt ceiling should not have been raised (see my previous post on this). Oh well, he’d just say they’re all just part of that vast left-wing conspiracy that is “so determined to undermine Bachmann’s presidential run.” 

She's whipping her campaign into shape!



Analogy time. Let’s say it’s the dead of winter and you have your grandma connected to a breathing machine in your home. Suppose you’re not able to pay the utility bill that's due unless your credit limit is raised, and Michele Bachmann was just hired at the bank and is put in charge of increasing said limit. So Bachmann says to you, I’m not raising your credit limit, because you need to cut your expenses NOW and turn your thermostat down to 58 degrees. What would you say? Is cutting that expense now going to pay the current utility bill?

Now, you and your family would be freezing and grandma might die if the power gets interrupted. But Bachmann doesn’t think that’s a big deal, and still threatens to cut you. She says you can throw some blankets on her and give her mouth to mouth (i.e., just pay the interest on the debt). In the final moments before power cut-off, you get the office manager to over-ride Bachmann so you can get the credit to pay the utility bill and keep the power on, and submit a plan to turn down the thermostat to 60 degrees and have a family meeting to pare down future expenses further. FICO lowers your credit score, however, because your negotiations with Bachmann made you late paying the bill and because you really should lower your thermostat to 58 degrees.

You see Bachmann later and she proclaims: “See FICO was right. Your credit limit should not have been raised.” You bite your lip. If Bachmann was really right, and you didn’t get that increase, grandma would be dead.

It was your previous utility expenses incurred in the bill currently due that required the credit limit increase, so it was not possible to just immediately cut expenses and pay the bill (the debt ceiling had to be increased in order to pay bills already incurred). Both Bachmann and Kincaid conflate the debts incurred which required the debt ceiling increase with current and future expenses. It was clear in the S+P report that increasing the debt ceiling was not the issue: the issue was the wrangling and the “trajectory” of the increasing debt in the future. The S+P report also discussed a more positive scenario by expiring high-earner tax cuts in 2013 because it would bring down the high trajectory—the cuts the Republicans want to keep in place. (emphasis added)

Our revised upside scenario--which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the 'AA+' long-term rating being revised to stable--retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating. In this scenario, we project that the net general government debt would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 77% in 2015 and to 78% by 2021.

Then to add insult to injury, Bachmann says, “You just got a blank check when they raised that debt limit.” You now feel like cold-cocking her.

But there may be a better answer to explain this to conservatives like Cliff: The Clinton Surplus. Because as most conservatives would only be too giddy to tell you, there was no Clinton “surplus”—it was a budget surplus--the debt continued. There was just a lot less added to the debt. I’m sure Kincaid would suddenly be able to differentiate it then..as well as Bachmann. Of course, no problem. That’s what you might call conservative “bias exposed for all to see.”