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55 search results for: politifact

31

“Spotlight on Spending” Report: Where Have You Been All of My (Political, Taxpaying) Life?

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Fine, tell me I need to get a life. But it is not an exaggeration to say that the “Spotlight On Spending” report compiled by the R.I. Center for Freedom & Prosperity and released Tuesday made my year.

Rhode Island currently has the eight highest local and state tax burden. While this is up from sixth highest, it is clear that we continue to spend beyond our means and our ability. Yet we’ve been told repeatedly – sometimes explicitly (thank you, Rep Tanzi); usually more subtly by the substance of the budget itself that emerges from the end of the legislative session – that there is nothing left in the state budget to cut. The “Spotlight On Spending” report resoundingly contradicts this.

32

Williams Doesn’t Want Minimum Wage Facts in “Her” Committee

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I’ve mentioned before that national experts who’ve testified before Rhode Island legislative committees have been astonished at the lack of decorum. Attend committee hearings on a regular basis, track legislation for a couple of sessions, and it’s difficult not to conclude that the entire process is designed mainly to make people feel as if there is a process — as if public input really could affect the laws under which we live.

But if nothing ever comes of the testimony, then the task of legislators is mainly to look attentive while lobbyists go through the motions and Rhode Islanders offer sincere, nervous, and useless testimony about things that matter to them. Sometimes the lack of weight shows through.

On Tuesday, having waited an hour and a half to give the House Committee on Labor the perspective of some research from the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, which he runs and for which I work, Mike Stenhouse was offering a quick summary of his written testimony. (Listening to the March 11 audio available here, it’s clear the committee didn’t have much patience for him to put his full testimony on the recording.)

The image of the typical minimum wage worker as a struggling single parent is false, he explained. Most are “young kids” looking for supplemental income, living with their parents in households that have family incomes over $61,000.

This was too much for chairwoman Anastasia Williams (D, Providence), who interrupted: “Are you joking? Are you standing in front of my committee joking me, right?”

Stenhouse was courteous enough not to point out that it’s not “her” committee, but the people’s. Instead he informed her that the Providence Journal’s PolitiFact team had recently investigated his statement and found it True.

When Stenhouse finished, Williams proceeded to mock his organization and then appeared to have forgotten what legislation they were discussing:

Well, first and foremost, seeing that you are here representing this Freedom and whomever these folks are… Freedom and Prosperity for a certain class of people, my question to you would be, what does a retiree now… would have if unilaterally… umm… the… the… the… I’m trying to cool down here, this is like… pass.

You’ll know the state is ready to pull itself out of the gutter when voters start demanding that their “leaders” are at least better at pretending that they really do represent all of us.

33

Minimum Wage Talk, the Worst Sort of Pandering

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GoLocalProv’s Kate Nagle cites RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity CEO Mike Stenhouse in her article, today, on talk of raising the minimum wage. As the Center’s report from last spring suggests, a minimum wage of $10.10 would destroy an estimated 3,466 Rhode Island jobs, and it wouldn’t affect the demographic that the politicians promote:

… 24,846 Rhode Islanders currently have jobs that pay them at a rate of $8.25 per hour or less. The “typical” profile … is of a white non-Hispanic high-school graduate, 21-years-old or younger and with no college experience, who lives with his or her parents and works 20-34 hours per week.

The Providence Journal’s PolitiFact crew contacted us a couple of months ago to fact-check that claim, but we haven’t heard anything since. (It doesn’t take much cynicism to think they’ve found other topics more interesting that didn’t require them to give the Center a “True.”)

But the economics aren’t really the key concern of most politicians. Rather, they want to say to a large group of people, “I will give you stuff.” Or, more accurately, “I will make other people give you their stuff.”

The part about 3,466 people losing their jobs kind of disrupts the narrative.

Politicians have internalized as a moral given that this redistribution is allowed and appropriate. We’ve permitted them to conclude that they have a right to take our stuff away, or force us to give it away.

The only question, then, is whether you’re in the disfavored group that ends up giving more than you get back. One suspects that individual answers to that question help explain who’s leaving our state and region for other states and who’s coming here from other countries.

For the people making the top-down decisions — politicians and bureaucrats — the most relevant question isn’t whether this flow is good for the economy, but rather, whether it transforms the population into one that will vote for them and their massive budgets.

34

Suggested Announcement for DePetro’s Show Tomorrow

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John Depetro returns to his show on WPRO tomorrow morning. Pop some popcorn (… er, pour some coffee?) and tune in; it’s bound to be interesting.

Personally, I hope he opens with an announcement of an eight figure defamation lawsuit against the group (though perhaps “beard” would be a more accurate term) For Our Daughters RI for their statement that DePetro

was accused of sexually assaulting a female co-worker

an accusation so rancid that PolitiFactRI (yes! PolitiFactRI!) rated it a “Pants-On-Fire” in today’s Providence Journal.

35

When Is a Lie “Half True”?

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Maybe when reality begins to make a desire for political manipulation into a threat to personal professional credibility.

Such is the case, one may presume, with this year’s PolitiFact Lie of the Year, which went to “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” The article acknowledges that PolitiFact twice graded the statement “half true,” but it never suggests an intention to revise those rulings or explains how a statement that “is partially correct and partially wrong” could be considered a lie.

If you like your “half true,” you can keep it?

Indeed, every other Lie of the Year had previously been ruled “Pants on Fire” (sometimes in combination with being “False”):

As painful as the next three years are likely to be, it’s going to be fascinating to watch as the supposed watchdogs in the mainstream media search for the boundaries of their hedges.

36

And the role of the state’s paper of record is?

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Further to my post, this morning, I want to add a stick to the flame of the idea that a state doesn’t get to Rhode Island’s current condition unless every institution that’s supposed to be a corrective to the corrupting power of government is perverted.

It must be stated upfront that there are some really excellent journalists at the Providence Journal. Considering the paper institutionally, however, I have to agree with Andrew Kadak of Barrington, in a letter published in today’s paper:

I hope that when the paper looks for a new owner, it will find one that really wants to expose corruption and mismanagement, and not be beholden to special interests. As an “outspoken voice,” the paper has been very quiet, and if Rhode Island is ever going to change, it needs a newspaper that cares about and understands its mission.

PolitiFact is a helpful symbol of the problem, but it’s a organization-wide issue. The things that get covered, or don’t get covered; how deeply an issue is inspected, and in what direction; who gets the benefit of the doubt, or doesn’t. Just look at today’s paper.

Our incompetent president, whose national approval rating is rightly plummeting, gets a boosting tie to Nelson Mandela on the front page. By contrast, it is news that left-wing, pro-abortion groups are “criticizing” Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin for making the point that Mandela supported abortion. It’s news that Angel Taveras might have made a math error regarding a pre-K proposal, but it’s not news that studies are finding such programs to be of dubious benefit in the first place.

This could be a daily exercise. As an organization, the Providence Journal has picked a side, and it’s the side that’s wreaking havoc on our communities, our state, and our nation.

37

Contrary to a Certain “Fact”-Checking Service, Rhode Island Does, Indeed, Have the Highest Number of Health Insurance Mandates

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One of the reasons that Rhode Islanders may seem to suffer slightly less than other states under the mandate-heavy ObamaCare law is because … well, we’ve already been suffering: the Rhode Island General Assembly has heaped the most number of health insurance mandates on us. “On us” because, contrary to the muddled thinking of too […]

40

The Projo needs self awareness, not self defense.

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The response PolitiFactRI editor Tim Murphy tacked onto the end of Jennifer Parrish’s objection to PolitiFact’s treatment of her is in keeping with something that I’ve found worrisome, lately.

Understandably, Murphy defends his department, but he does so in the form of an argument, without responding to or even acknowledging Parrish’s legitimate concerns. There’s no concession that the paper’s other sources were SEIU clients; there’s no explanation about why PolitiFact picked a particular fact to check; there’s no promise to look into claims made by the union. His commentary gives the impression of one party to a debate responding to another, not the disinterested judge that PolitiFact claims to be.

Murphy’s response brings to mind a recent column by Mark Patinkin, in which he defends newspapers — beginning with the cover price, but delving into the value proposition. He notes the number of reporters, some specialized; he talks about their watchdog function and the value of editors.

Arguments are possible, but for now I’d highlight what he doesn’t include: any sort of introspection about the paper’s responsibility to prove its value and question whether it’s doing the things that make a watchdog and layers of editors valuable. Maybe Rhode Islanders need and want a watchdog against powerful organizations that strive to change policy to their own benefit, not individual child care providers who are part-time advocates against those forces. Maybe skepticism about the watchdog function is justified when it looks like the DNC is doing the paper’s page layout.

Maybe when folks dip into the “splintered, random view” that Patinkin says he gets from online news, they see that the “informative portrait” they get through the paper is leaving out or amplifying details in a way that serves an agenda other than informing the consumer.

41

Politicized Fact-Checking Strikes Child-Care Unionization

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A “mostly false” ruling on an issue related to unionization of child care providers offers insight into the operation of the Providence Journal’s PolitiFact team and may indicate that the target of the investigation is not the one who has been discredited.

42

Rhode Island Is Losing for Lack of Stories

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Both Rhode Island’s languishing economy and the fading strength of its paper of record may result from a lack of hope and interest, which result from a lack of any real competitive battle for the direction of the state.

48

Things We Read Today (17), Weekend

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Returning RI to its natural state; RI as a playground for the rich; the gimmick of QE; the gimmick of digital records; killing coal/economy; when “Mostly False” means true.

49

Things We Read Today (14), Wednesday

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Why freedom demands father-daughter dances; the U.S., less free; PolitiFact gets a Half Fair rating for its Doherty correction; and the mainstream media cashes in some of its few remaining credibility chips for the presidential incumbent.

50

Things We Read Today (11), Friday

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Being right about district 1 messaging; PolitiFact prepares for the election; what’s a charter; being right about quantitative easing, First Amendment; and Bob Dylan says what he means.

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