Romney claims five studies back up his tax plan - Politifact says "mostly false"

Ryan

Lifer
Oct 31, 2000
27,519
2
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Our ruling

Romney said that five studies show that his tax plan can cut rates and still bring in the same amount of money as today without raising taxes on the middle class.

Romney is using the word "studies" generously. Two items on his list are newspaper editorials that can be analytical but are rarely treated as independent research. One article comes from a campaign adviser, a connection that generally suggests a less than independent assessment. That leaves just two reports out Romney’s five.

There is a fair argument to be made that the Tax Policy Center used an arbitrary dividing line of $200,000 to separate high-income households from all others. The same problem lies in setting the breakpoint at $100,000, a choice preferred by at least one of the defenders of Romney’s proposal.

The studies from Feldstein and Rosen use 2009 data. That was an abnormal year and one that made it easier to make the math work for the Romney plan. The analysts could have chosen other years but decided not to.

We see no more than two independent studies out of the five claimed. We rate the statement Mostly False.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ey/romney-claims-5-studies-back-his-tax-plan/

mitt-romney-pinocchio.jpg


I was watching a Mitt interview and he threw out the "5 studies support me" line....I decided to Google it. I tell you, I was **shocked** to find out that it was just another fabrication :colbert: :rolleyes: lol

Why do conservatives keep giving him a pass when it comes to policy proposals that are almost complete lies? I'm starting to get the feeling that ALL of his supporters are willing to overlook it because they really don't care who the Republican candidate is - anyone but Obama. It's a real shame....
 

Anarchist420

Diamond Member
Feb 13, 2010
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www.facebook.com
They can raise effective rate on some people, not necessarily by class, while actually reducing marginal rates.

It will bring in the same amount of revenue... I don't see why it wouldn't. The govt could have a flat marginal income tax rate of 10% and get the same amount of revenue as it does with the current tax code.
 

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
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Who fact checks the fact checkers? politifact bias of course.
http://www.politifactbias.com/

So a website that thoroughly cites its sources and explains it reasoning while going after both Democrats and Republicans when they say something wrong...or a website where conservative pundits reference each other and go out of their way to avoid making factually based arguments while ONLY defending Republicans. Which one to choose...hmm...
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
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Politifact is just trying to be nice. Romney's "plan" is bullshit, wrapped in the rhetoric Righties love to hear.

Any honest measure of it buries the needle into the pure hogwash zone...

Control deficits by first cutting taxes, particularly for people who don't need 'em. Make up the difference with magic.

Vanquish unemployment by laying off govt workers.

Mend inequality by cutting benefits to poor children & poor seniors.

Protect the environment by slashing regulations & enforcement.

Offshore everything, leave massive debt in the wake.

And, yeh, assert that people making $250K are just middle class, honest.
 

Schmide

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2002
5,581
712
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When will Romney state he's actually going after the mortgage-interest tax deduction and not just deductions in general? (Including home owners in the 100k-200k)

IMO this would be a bain to his base.
 

wirednuts

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2007
7,121
4
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i just dont understand, at this point, how anyone gives any credibility to any far right republican. they lie through their teeth, and are not intelligent. theyve made most democrats seem like normal people (yikes)
 

Dulanic

Diamond Member
Oct 27, 2000
9,949
569
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I'm waiting for the debates... All Obama has to do is keep asking for Mitt to support his claim.
 

Bryan White

Member
Sep 15, 2012
36
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So a website that thoroughly cites its sources and explains it reasoning while going after both Democrats and Republicans when they say something wrong...or a website where conservative pundits reference each other and go out of their way to avoid making factually based arguments while ONLY defending Republicans. Which one to choose...hmm...

"Rainsford" is giving inaccurate information.

PolitiFact Bias highlights the best criticisms of PolitiFact from both the right and the left. We find better criticism from the right, though we're not shy about pointing out problems with those criticisms regardless of the source or the target.

Despite criticizing both sides (just like PolitiFact does), we get criticized for our bias. That's understandable to a point. We admit our bias up front. It's right in the FAQ. People are entitled to take it into account, hopefully not in a way that blinds them to the good information we're providing. But there's a contrast with PolitiFact on this point. Everyone is biased. But PolitiFact doesn't tell you about its bias, unless we count the evidence in the finished product.

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair doesn't reveal his voting record because he doesn't want you to get the supposedly false impression that he's biased. If that's the kind of honesty you want, then PolitiFact is the place to get it. And you can just ignore things like the cardboard cutout of President Obama that stands behind Adair as he works in his Washington D.C. office.

No I'm not kidding.

Please do us the favor of reading our FAQ or a representative selection of posts from the site itself before jumping to conclusions and posting bad information about us. Thanks.
 

Phokus

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
22,995
776
126
So a website that thoroughly cites its sources and explains it reasoning while going after both Democrats and Republicans when they say something wrong...or a website where conservative pundits reference each other and go out of their way to avoid making factually based arguments while ONLY defending Republicans. Which one to choose...hmm...

Monovillage is another one of those idiots who can't tell the difference between fake news and real news, he should be ignored.
 

etrigan420

Golden Member
Oct 30, 2007
1,723
1
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"Rainsford" is giving inaccurate information.

PolitiFact Bias highlights the best criticisms of PolitiFact from both the right and the left. We find better criticism from the right, though we're not shy about pointing out problems with those criticisms regardless of the source or the target.

Despite criticizing both sides (just like PolitiFact does), we get criticized for our bias. That's understandable to a point. We admit our bias up front. It's right in the FAQ. People are entitled to take it into account, hopefully not in a way that blinds them to the good information we're providing. But there's a contrast with PolitiFact on this point. Everyone is biased. But PolitiFact doesn't tell you about its bias, unless we count the evidence in the finished product.

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair doesn't reveal his voting record because he doesn't want you to get the supposedly false impression that he's biased. If that's the kind of honesty you want, then PolitiFact is the place to get it. And you can just ignore things like the cardboard cutout of President Obama that stands behind Adair as he works in his Washington D.C. office.

No I'm not kidding.

Please do us the favor of reading our FAQ or a representative selection of posts from the site itself before jumping to conclusions and posting bad information about us. Thanks.

It's cute that you guys take yourselves seriously.

I'll bet FoxNews would sponsor you..."Fair and Balanced" and all that.
 

MovingTarget

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2003
8,999
109
106
"Rainsford" is giving inaccurate information.

PolitiFact Bias highlights the best criticisms of PolitiFact from both the right and the left. We find better criticism from the right, though we're not shy about pointing out problems with those criticisms regardless of the source or the target.

Despite criticizing both sides (just like PolitiFact does), we get criticized for our bias. That's understandable to a point. We admit our bias up front. It's right in the FAQ. People are entitled to take it into account, hopefully not in a way that blinds them to the good information we're providing. But there's a contrast with PolitiFact on this point. Everyone is biased. But PolitiFact doesn't tell you about its bias, unless we count the evidence in the finished product.

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair doesn't reveal his voting record because he doesn't want you to get the supposedly false impression that he's biased. If that's the kind of honesty you want, then PolitiFact is the place to get it. And you can just ignore things like the cardboard cutout of President Obama that stands behind Adair as he works in his Washington D.C. office.

No I'm not kidding.

Please do us the favor of reading our FAQ or a representative selection of posts from the site itself before jumping to conclusions and posting bad information about us. Thanks.

So I take it that you are an employee of politifactbias.com? :hmm:
 

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
35,052
30
86
Despite criticizing both sides (just like PolitiFact does), we get criticized for our bias. That's understandable to a point. We admit our bias up front. It's right in the FAQ.

Ben Shapiro, writing for Breitbart.com's Big Peace, pre-emptively steals my thunder on PolitiFact's ridiculous story on Mitt Romney and the statement from the American embassy in Libya.
.
.
.

When the moronitude on your homepage cites material from discredited wingnut sources like Brietbart and the Heritage Foundation, you're already far too full of BS to expect any crediblity or respect for anything you say.

Go home and practice! :thumbsdown:
 
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Bryan White

Member
Sep 15, 2012
36
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It's cute that you guys take yourselves seriously.

Thanks. We have good reason for taking ourselves seriously. We're doing serious work.

Here's a very recent example.

PolitiFact has a number of times ruled Mitt Romney "Pants on Fire" for referring to President Obama's "apology tour." That rating is based on the reasoning of four experts. One was a conservative expert on foreign policy and he said Romney was correct that Obama was apologizing. Three liberal experts from various disciplines said Romney was wrong. PolitiFact completely ignored one of the experts in making its ruling.

This week, PolitiFact ruled "Half True" a claim from Mr. Obama that Romney's health care plan might allow insurance companies to refuse coverage to 89 million people. Watch how PolitiFact makes use of experts:
We checked out a summary of the August 2012 study from the Commonwealth Fund, and chatted with one of its authors and several other health care experts about the accuracy of the campaign claim.

"If you take it very literally, it's accurate," said Pamela Short, one of the Commonwealth Fund study authors, who was a health care expert on President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. "... It doesn't mean it would, but it could."

Other experts were less generous.
PolitiFact isn't completely showing its work, here. How did expert opinion break down? Did all of the other experts disagree with the first? The language somewhat implies it, though it's not the sort of thing we should simply assume. Still, we have a basic structure that creates a sharp contrast between these two ratings. In one, a conservative expert is completely ignored. In another, the apparent minority opinion carries great weight in the final ruling.

I'll bet FoxNews would sponsor you..."Fair and Balanced" and all that.
Yeah, thanks for judging us on the evidence.
:rolleyes:

We're delighted to dispute based on facts but bored by ad hominem attacks.
 

Bryan White

Member
Sep 15, 2012
36
0
0
When the moronitude on your homepage sites material from discredited wingnut sources like Brietbart and the Heritage Foundation, you're already far too full of BS to expect any crediblity or respect for anything you say.

Go home and practice! :thumbsdown:

Wow, logic! j/k


No, really. Somebody make a reasonable comment. People aren't wrong because of who they are or because they are biased. It's not logical to assume a wrong conclusion because the person is biased. That's fallacious reasoning.

If I approve of something Shapiro said that is wrong, then it reflects poorly on my reasoning. It does not reflect poorly on my reasoning if I approve good reasoning from Shapiro, regardless of whether Shapiro is biased.

Who wants to deal with the reasoning? Anybody?
 

berzerker60

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2012
1,233
1
0
Politifact engages in false equivalencies all the time to try to seem neutral and is really pedantic about language choices (the 'Lie of the Year' for 'ending Medicare' being the most obvious example), but the use of "experts" really ought to be considered secondary to actual judgments. The "apology tour" meme is pretty objectively stupid for any values of "apology" short of thinking it means "admitting imperfection and being diplomatic."

Anyway, it's not like anyone with critical thinking skills will rely solely on Politifact, you use the judgements of a number of fact checkers at once. Either way they're not going to be kind to the Romney campaign, but that's okay for conservatives because they've constructed an entire alternate epistemological structure where anything that could disagree with their prejudgements is a priori a liberal smear, but it from the media, academic research, science, or even Republican politicians (simply dubbed RINOs when not speaking talking points).
 

MovingTarget

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2003
8,999
109
106
Obviously you've read the FAQ.
:biggrin:

Haha, nope. It was just a bit of deductive reasoning based on the tone, length, and content of your post. I hadn't clicked on your site yet. Since you replied, I have, and I see your poster name on the right column. Suspicion confirmed. I'll make my way to the FAQ page soon, as I'm typing this while simultaneously eating lunch.
 

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
35,052
30
86
Thanks. We have good reason for taking ourselves seriously. We're doing serious work.

Serious work??? Seriously??? Buahahahahahaha!!!

< cough > Fap! fap, fap!

I was thinking of you when I wrote the title song for this movie...

193197.1020.A.jpg

Seriously (if anything about your site can be taken that way), you can't be serious. :biggrin:

Yeah, thanks for judging us on the evidence.
:rolleyes:

We're delighted to dispute based on facts but bored by ad hominem attacks.

An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or unrelated belief of the person supporting it.

The long history of the beliefs expressed by the vast majority opinions on breitbart and the Heritage Foundation are anything but unrelated to the idea of influencing the outcome of the coming elections. I could do a search for specific articles by a long list of authors appearing on both sites, but it's easier just to remind everyone that, just prior to his death, Andrew Breitbart was most recently seen as the unhinged, fulminating maniac starring in videos pimping the specious charges against ACORN and Shirley Sherrod Brown. :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation sports the voices of neocon traitors from from Bush era and their Fox Noise cheerleaders who pimped wars, wars and more wars based on lies.

How'd those WMD's in Iraq work out for ya?

Didn't ya just luv the torture? :hmm:

Those same morons pimped Bush's deregulation of the Wall Street robber barons and the oil industry. Maybe you think we haven't had enough good financial collapses or environmental disasters for one decade. :\

Now, they're pimping the disastrous Ryan/Romney budget, but they refuse to put forth any concrete descriptions of what they would actually do or where the funds would come from to cover the revenue lost by continued and further tax cuts for the uber-rich. :thumbsdown:

Referring the sources of the statements and underlying goals of those who offer their opinions on Breitbart's and the Heritage Foundation's sites is hardly ann ad hominem attack. It's just full disclosure of who these people are and what their agenda is.

If you have a problem with that, it's your problem. :cool:
 
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Bryan White

Member
Sep 15, 2012
36
0
0
Politifact engages in false equivalencies all the time to try to seem neutral

It's not working. A new operation called "AllSides" rates news sources on a bipartisan crowd-sourced basis and located PolitiFact well on the left. Not that I'm a huge fan of crowdsourcing.

and is really pedantic about language choices (the 'Lie of the Year' for 'ending Medicare' being the most obvious example),
Every "Lie of the Year" shares that problem. People on the left were simply successful in overlooking the problem until their own ox was gored. James Rago earned a Pulitzer in part from criticizing an earlier PolitiFact "Lie of the Year." And who are they kidding? "Lie of the Year" is automatically opinion no matter who wins the award.

but the use of "experts" really ought to be considered secondary to actual judgments.
Agreed to a point. As I wrote for "PolitiFact Bias," it's okay to emphasize one set of expert opinions over another if you provide a solid justification for doing it. If you skip the justification it makes it look like somebody is picking and choosing on grounds other than consideration of the evidence.

The "apology tour" meme is pretty objectively stupid for any values of "apology" short of thinking it means "admitting imperfection and being diplomatic."
Heh. What's diplomatic about admitting imperfection unless the admission fills the customary role of an apology (smoothing things over)? Would admitting imperfection prove diplomatic, for example, if one declared "Yeah, we bombed your embassy by mistake. So what? Get over it." See the point? Admitting imperfection strongly tends to convey regret implicitly. Compare: "We bombed your embassy by mistake." The latter, if intended to help smooth things over with the offended party, is an apology.

Anyway, it's not like anyone with critical thinking skills will rely solely on Politifact
A person with critical thinking skills is probably wise not to rely on PolitiFact at all. They created a bad system, can't seem to apply their standards consistently and have chronic problems with selection bias. Go with Annenberg, but still keep the beeyess detector going.
 

hardhat

Senior member
Dec 4, 2011
422
114
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Yeah, thanks for judging us on the evidence.


We're delighted to dispute based on facts but bored by ad hominem attacks.

Let's see if your analysis maintains your own standards.

In your site's study Ben Shapiro: "Politifact Cites Three Liberal 'Apology Experts' to Condemn Romney" you argue that politifact is hiding some of the opinions of experts about the nature of apology. In particular, you assert that politifact didn't include the opinion of Nile Gardner. You present no evidence whatsoever that politifact tried to contact Nile Gardner, you just assume that he was the expert that did not respond.

Disregarding your baseless claim, what was Gardiner's actual opinion on the politifact fact check? Well I'd expect him to oppose politifact's ruling considering that HE WROTE THE ARTICLE THAT POLITIFACT REFUTED!

Your article does not even refute one of the arguments made by politifact, but instead tries to muddy the water between condemnation and apology by giving an example where someone can both apologize and condemn an action. Does that mean that there is an implicit apology contained in every condemnation? If I condemn Russia's nuclear proliferation, does that mean that I am apologizing for it? Also, please remember that a country does not have any kind of responsibility to support and endorse every action of its citizens. We elect the people who decide what the rules of our nation are and what our foreign policy should be.

Your article is missing any actual facts to refute the arguments politifact made, it's only source is of one of the authors of the article that was refuted, and you did not actually prove that Obama apologized for any of America's actions. Those are the facts and the evidence. Your articles don't measure up.