Innumeracy

Brendan Nyhan flags this preposterous lede:

3 Candidates With 3 Financial Plans, but One Deficit
By LARRY ROHTER and MICHAEL COOPER

The Republican and Democratic presidential candidates differ strikingly in their approaches to taxes and spending, but their fiscal plans have at least one thing in common: each could significantly swell the budget deficit and increase the national debt by trillions of dollars, according to tax and budget experts.

Brendan thinks the problem here is a tendency toward false equivalence. I'd say it may be simple innumeracy. Later in the article we find out that McCain's proposals "if enacted as proposed, would add at least $5.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade." Conversely, "even taking into account that there are some differences between the proposals by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the impact of either on the deficit would be less than one-third that of the McCain plan." Let's do some math. McCain's plans will at "at least $5.7 trillion" whereas the Democratic plans will add "less than" $1.9 trillion to the deficit. The difference between them, in short, is at least $3.8 trillion.

That, obviously, is a huge difference -- larger than the net worth of Bill Gates or the GDP of Italy. There's no grounds for saying that two plans' costs have something "in common" when they differ in cost by at least $3.8 trillion, but to understand this you need to understand what you're talking about. After all, if one candidate was offering budget-busting on the Democratic scale, and another candidate was offering $2 trillion in deficit reduction nobody would have trouble distinguishing between the budget hawk and the deficit spender. But the difference in magnitude is the same in either case.

Comments

This is something the Democrats need to hammer. The "fiscal steward" baton is squarely in the Republicans' grasp, deservedly so or not. Really, it's probably more of a "government program cutting" baton, but people don't distinguish the difference. I digress.

Anyway, this will really isolate McCain from his base. A lot of people I know that are rubber-stamp Republicans are all over the health care plans of the two Democrats, squawking about how much it will raise taxes. This is virtually unknown to the public.

Posted by socctty | April 28, 2008 11:49 AM

it is not humanly possible that neither the writers nor their editors, among them, couldn't have sorted out this difference (even the innumerate understand the difference between 5.7 and 1.9).

ergo, i think the notion that the problem here is innumeracy is much, much, much too generous.

the problem is much deeper than that: it gets at whether newspapers see their role as informing or as something else.

Posted by howard | April 28, 2008 12:12 PM

Supply side (a.k.a. "Tinkle Down") economics doesn't work without taking on an enormous associated debt burden, and while jacking up spending on top of it. Didn't work for Reagan, didn't work for Bush I, and REALLY didn't work for Bush II. The fact is that there are a lot of things we expect out of our gov't, and they have to be paid for.

Another side effect of these policies is that as you take on more debt, the weakening of the dollar kills us. We pay 50% more for a barrel of oil than the Europeans do because oil is traded in U.S. dollars, and the dollar has been weakened by bad Republican policies (that McCain wants to continue and extend). Imagine what things would be like if oil was back below $80 per barrel, just because the dollar was back on par with the Euro.

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 12:17 PM

Brendan thinks the problem here is a tendency toward false equivalence

When Brendan Nyhan talks about false equivalence, he knows whereof he speaks.

The whole premise behind Spinsanity, where he made what name he didn't inherit, was false equivalence.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | April 28, 2008 12:18 PM

There seems to be some conflation of 'deficit' and 'debt'.

Posted by Chuck | April 28, 2008 12:21 PM

Aren't all the proposals negative in the first place because Bush screwed the budget? If the Bush tax cuts and Iraq spending hadn't happened, we'd probably be talking about surpluses for Dem proposals and a return to deficits for McCain's plans. But since Bush already messed everything up, that means there's no difference between the parties?

Posted by SP | April 28, 2008 12:23 PM

So, the alleged problem here is that the story waits until the fifth paragraph to state that McCain's proposals would increase the debt by more than Obama/Clinton's? Instead of the first paragraph, which says that all the proposals will increase the deficit? That doesn't seem to me to be burying the lede at all.

McCain's plans will at "at least $5.7 trillion" whereas the Democratic plans will add "less than" $1.9 trillion to the deficit.

You mean debt, not deficit.

Posted by Al | April 28, 2008 12:24 PM

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but has anyone actually written to LARRY ROHTER or MICHAEL COOPER (or their editors) to make them aware of this?

I am an avid blog reader but I worry that some of this vital feedback may not be read by the very people to whom it might be most helpful

(unless of course, the subtext here is that the authors are not motivated to be clear and accurate in their coverage.)

Posted by Aaron | April 28, 2008 12:32 PM

Also, since when does Matthew care about the deficit? I thought he would rather increase spending than focus on the deficit (no, I'm not going to search through the archives to look for the posts Matthew in which Matthew has taken this position). After all, deficit reduction was one of those Clinton-era, Rubin-omics positions that didn't permit sufficient additional spending on domestic priorities. I thought the Obamabots like Matthew were going to throw out Rubin together with the Clintons.

And, one other thing, on the article itself, it is hilarious to see the article describe the "nonpartisan" Tax Policy Center. Riiiiiiight. You get down to the last paragraph of the article and you see very well what the "nonpartisan" Tax Policy Center is all about - they are "very sad" that the Democrats have limited themselves in tax raises, and they think that "we don’t have enough revenue coming in to pay our bills" - nothing about our bills being too big for the amount of revenue coming in!

Posted by Al | April 28, 2008 12:33 PM

There are obviously different levels of serious "trillions" among the right wing. A trillion for Medicare, that's serious stuff. 3.8 trillion for empire? Not so much.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 28, 2008 12:34 PM

Al, you're now committing the same problem that the times committed. if you aren't a green eyeshade republican of the '50s, that doesn't mean that you have to support unlimited and endless deficits either.

when people claim that 5.7T and 1.9T are really just the same thing, that's just plain horseshit, and that's what the times dumped into our homes with its headlines and perspective.

matthew is not obsessed with deficits; that doesn't mean he favors fiscal irresponsibility. there is only one party and one political persuasion in america that supports this kind of mindless fiscal misbehavior, and that's the republican party and the right-wing.

as for you, al, you're welcome to lay out for us your spending cuts that will bring the budget into balance. otherwise, your last sentence at 12:33 is nonsensical. we should, of course, have been running surpluses the last few years (balance should be kept over the length of the business cycle): please tell us which $2T in spending, for example, you would have cut the past 4-5 years.

in specifics, and not vague generalities applicable to the future.

Posted by howard | April 28, 2008 12:47 PM

when people claim that 5.7T and 1.9T are really just the same thing, that's just plain horseshit

Nobody is saying that they are "just the same thing". The point is that neither one of them helps us close the budget deficit.

please tell us which $2T in spending, for example, you would have cut the past 4-5 years

I would have limited growth in spending on health care - Medicare, Medicaid, etc. - to the rate of inflation since 2001. We'd be saving over $200 billion/year.

Posted by Al | April 28, 2008 1:04 PM

Check out the graphic associated with the article-

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/04/27/us/20080427_FISCAL_GRAPHIC.html

McCain generates $60 billion from earmarks, $65 billion from "wasteful programs" and gets an extra $20 billion from economic growth.

Posted by Alex | April 28, 2008 1:12 PM

I hate to agree with Al, but there is nothing inaccurate about the lede. Yes, you can complain that their focus is in the wrong place, in that they don't focus on the difference in magnitude between the plans. But, they are not guilty of innumeracy.

Posted by Jim W | April 28, 2008 1:15 PM

Nobody is saying that they are "just the same thing". The point is that neither one of them helps us close the budget deficit.

So, you'd just as soon owe 5.7 trillion rather than 1.9 trillion.

And why? Because Democratic trillions are more harmful than Republican trillions.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 28, 2008 1:16 PM

So let me get this straight...it's a smart strategy for the Dems to run on a platform of $1.9 trillion in deficit spending, and then to say "Oh look, the other guy's three times worse, we're deficit hawks"???

In the eyes of the public, the sign matters as much as the size.

Posted by Mr. Noah | April 28, 2008 1:57 PM

To put the Dems vs. the Repubs in perspective when it comes to fiscal responsibility, just look at this graph of receipts vs. outlays. Although Carter was handed a bag of economic problems by his predecessors, he was getting close to a balanced budget. St. Ronnie made the economy look great ... by borrowing trillions.

George I did the same. George I's outlays actual don't look terrible, but that's because GDP was artificially buoyed by Reagan's huge increases in deficit fueled gov't spending. Gotta' love that illusion of prosperity funded by gov't deficits (which become enduring debt).

Clinton and the Dems started to get ahold of the problem immediately. Note that receipts are going up and outlays down right away, not after the GOP took control of Congress. (The GOP likes to take credit for what occurred under Clinton, but the trends started before they had control.) The raw numbers also show spending getting under control in Clinton's first budget.

George II and his merry band of drunken sailors (a.k.a. the Republican controlled Congress) went right back to the old ways, spending like crazy. The stock market stayed up due to debt taken on by the gov't, debt taken on by the consumer, and by policies than encouraged a real estate bubble. Again, a lot of illusion.

McCain is now espousing the same GOP policies that have saddled the country with ever mounting debt. Here's a graph of debt as part of GDP. Yeah! Look at St. Ronnie and George I go! And George II isn't a slouch either!

If you want to boost the stock market by increasing gov't debt, VOTE REPUBLICAN!

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 2:07 PM

So it's not fair to make the observation that no candidate will come close to balancing the budget?

Because one of them will be significantly less close than the others, event though they will all be TRILLIONS off?

Only idiotic partisanship would think that point is somehow subsidiary to McCain's being worse at balancing the budget.

A non-partisan would find it newsworthy that all the candidates are big time overspenders.

And if only MY would not have "lede" be one of the few words he bothers to spell "correctly"--pretentious term that it is.

Posted by Bill | April 28, 2008 2:13 PM

After all, if one candidate was offering budget-busting on the Democratic scale, and another candidate was offering $2 trillion in deficit reduction nobody would have trouble distinguishing between the budget hawk and the deficit spender.

I'm trying to understand this sentence. You are aware that Democratic presidents generally run lower deficits than GOP presidents. Clinton ran a surplus not that long ago.

Posted by rk | April 28, 2008 2:27 PM

Having no candidate talking about balanced budgets is absolutely a valid story line. It's a bad thing for this country and should be discussed.

But ignoring the fact that McCain's position will cause several TIMES the debt of either Dem is irresponsible. There is a reason why petty theft and grand theft are prosecuted differently; because the sums involved are meaningful. It's the same here. The deficit positions of all 3 candidates are bad, but McCain's is far, far worse.

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 2:33 PM

Since it is extremely unlikely that any of the candidates will actually achieve their wish list of spending proposals if elected, this whole conversation is not actually about the budget or deficit spending. It's about campaign promises and honesty.

Essentially, what this shows is that both Democrats are being far more realistic about what can actually be accomplished in the present climate. We have an overextended military involved in two extremely expensive wars overseas, serious economic problems domestically, and a bevy of domestic issues, including healthcare, that require attention.

One of the legacies of the Bush administration will be that the president mortgaged the future of the nation by promising too much -- Iraq, Afghanistan, increased domestic spending AND tax cuts. McCain, sadly, appears to believe the only way to appease the Republican base is to keep all of these things and throw in a bunch of his own spending measures (so much for the party of small government).

No one will get everything they say they want. But it's telling that McCain is promising so much. It speaks to the general inability of his party to grapple with reality. It's a weird thing to see in the Republican party (I thought it was the liberals who were the idealistic dreamers!), but there it is.

Posted by Emily | April 28, 2008 2:36 PM

Al, i do love your solution! even if i give you the benefit of every doubt in the book - that there is any chance that congress would cut medical spending to the rate of inflation, that such a cut would really "save" $200B a year - you've still only given me $1T.

now show me the second trillion: otherwise, it is simply not true that the problem is too much spending.

Posted by howard | April 28, 2008 3:28 PM

while i'm well aware that most reporters don't understand math anymore than barbie does, i have to disagree with matthew on this on. the entire packaging of this article was to set up a false equivalency. it's classic broderistic "a pox on both their houses" stuff.
if the writers wanted to convey the reality of the situation they would have put the actual numbers, 5.7 and 1.9, in the lede rather than assuming that the enterprising reader was going to whip out their calculator and do the math.
rusty

Posted by dj spellchecka | April 28, 2008 5:28 PM

A propos innumeracy: "it´s a huge difference -- larger than the net worth of Bill Gates.."

Matt, it is not larger, it is in the range of 40 times the net worth of Bill Gates.

I love it when some English or Poli-sci major try to play with numbers not between 1 and 10.

Matt, did you know that journalists in Italy have to pass an exam? I dream of the same rule worldwide , but only about numeracy, and for bloggers too.

Posted by tired of checking the math | April 28, 2008 5:38 PM

Howard - where do you get this $2T in debt over 5 years from? Remember, the budget deficit was only $163B or so last year, so if was saving $200B, we'd be in positive territory (which is where it should be in 2007).

Posted by Al | April 28, 2008 5:44 PM

MY FELLOW "BITTER", STUPID, WORKING CLASS PEOPLE :-)

If you think like Barack Obama, that WORKING CLASS PEOPLE are just a bunch of "BITTER"!, STUPID, PEASANTS, Cash COWS!, and CANNON FODDER. :-(

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think Barack Obama with little or no experience would be better than Hillary Clinton with 35 years experience.

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think that Obama with no experience can fix an economy on the verge of collapse better than Hillary Clinton. Whose ;-) husband (Bill Clinton) led the greatest economic expansion, and prosperity in American history.

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think that Obama with no experience fighting for universal health care can get it for you better than Hillary Clinton. Who anticipated this current health care crisis back in 1993, and fought a pitched battle against overwhelming odds to get universal health care for all the American people.

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think that Obama with no experience can manage, and get us out of two wars better than Hillary Clinton. Whose ;-) husband (Bill Clinton) went to war only when he was convinced that he absolutely had to. Then completed the mission in record time against a nuclear power. AND DID NOT LOSE THE LIFE OF A SINGLE AMERICAN SOLDIER. NOT ONE!

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think that Obama with no experience saving the environment is better than Hillary Clinton. Whose ;-) husband (Bill Clinton) left office with the greatest amount of environmental cleanup, and protections in American history.

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think that Obama with little or no education experience is better than Hillary Clinton. Whose ;-) husband (Bill Clinton) made higher education affordable for every American. And created higher job demand and starting salary’s than they had ever been before or since.

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think that Obama with no experience will be better than Hillary Clinton who spent 8 years at the right hand of President Bill Clinton. Who is already on record as one of the greatest Presidents in American history.

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think that you can change the way Washington works with pretty speeches from Obama, rather than with the experience, and political expertise of two master politicians ON YOUR SIDE like Hillary and Bill Clinton..

You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you think all those Republicans voting for Obama in the Democratic primaries, and caucuses are doing so because they think he is a stronger Democratic candidate than Hillary Clinton. :-)

Best regards

jacksmith... Working Class :-)

p.s. You Might Be An Idiot! :-)

If you don't know that the huge amounts of money funding the Obama campaign to try and defeat Hillary Clinton is coming in from the insurance, and medical industry, that has been ripping you off, and killing you and your children. And denying you, and your loved ones the life saving medical care you needed. All just so they can make more huge immoral profits for them-selves off of your suffering...

You see, back in 1993 Hillary Clinton had the audacity, and nerve to try and get quality, affordable universal health care for everyone to prevent the suffering and needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of you each year. :-)

Approx. 100,000 of you die each year from medical accidents from a rush to profit by the insurance, and medical industry. Another 120,000 of you die each year from treatable illness that people in other developed countries don’t die from. And I could go on, and on...

OBAMA AIDE: "WORKING-CLASS VOTERS NOT KEY FOR DEMOCRATS" :o

DEBATE! DEBATE!! DEBATE!!!...

Posted by jacksmith | April 29, 2008 12:45 AM

DEBATE! DEBATE!! DEBATE!!!

It's time for everyone to face the truth. Barack Obama has no real chance of winning the national election in November at this time. His crushing defeat in Pennsylvania makes that fact crystal clear. His best, and only real chance of winning in November is on a ticket with Hillary Clinton as her VP.

Hillary Clinton seemed almost somber at her Pennsylvania victory speech. As if part of her was hoping Obama could have proved he had some chance of winning against the republican attack machine, and their unlimited money, and resources.

But it is absolutely essential that the democrats take back the Whitehouse in November. America, and the American people are in a very desperate condition now. And the whole World has been doing all that they can to help keep us propped up.

Hillary Clinton say's that the heat, and decisions in the Whitehouse are much tougher than the ones on the campaign trail. But I think Mr. Obama faces a test of whether he has what it takes to be a commander and chief by facing the difficult facts, and the truth before him. And by doing what is best for the American people by dropping out of the race, and offering his whole hearted assistance to Hillary Clinton to help her take back the Whitehouse for the American people, and the World.

Mr. Obama is a great speaker. And I am confident he can explain to the American people the need, and wisdom of such a personal sacrifice for them. It should be clear to everyone by now that Hillary Clinton is fighting her heart out for the American people. She has known for a long time that Mr. Obama can not win this November. You have to remember that the Clinton's have won the Whitehouse twice before. They know what it takes.

If Mr. Obama fails his test of commander and chief we can only hope that Hillary Clinton can continue her heroic fight for the American people. And that she prevails. She will need all the continual support and help we can give her. She may fight like a superhuman. But she is only human.

Sen. Hillary Clinton: "You know, more people have now voted for me than have voted for my opponent. In fact, I now have more votes than anybody has ever had in a primary contest for a nomination. And it's also clear that we've got nine more important contests to go."

Sincerely

Jacksmith... Working Class :-)

Posted by jacksmith | April 29, 2008 12:54 AM

If you think that Obama with little or no education experience is better than Hillary Clinton. Whose ;-) husband (Bill Clinton) made higher education affordable for every American.

Maybe you are hoping to reach some sector of the age demographic that doesn't know what a joke that is but it makes me really, really, fucking mad.

Posted by Ed Marshall | April 29, 2008 12:54 AM