[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Checking the Facts, in Advance

Tue Oct 12 11:26:01 PDT 2004

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Checking the Facts, in Advance

October 12, 2004
 By PAUL KRUGMAN 

It's not hard to predict what President Bush, who sounds
increasingly desperate, will say tomorrow. Here are eight
lies or distortions you'll hear, and the truth about each: 

Jobs 

Mr. Bush will talk about the 1.7 million jobs
created since the summer of 2003, and will say that the
economy is "strong and getting stronger." That's like
boasting about getting a D on your final exam, when you
flunked the midterm and needed at least a C to pass the
course. 

Mr. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to
preside over a decline in payroll employment. That's worse
than it sounds because the economy needs around 1.6 million
new jobs each year just to keep up with population growth.
The past year's job gains, while better news than earlier
job losses, barely met this requirement, and they did
little to close the huge gap between the number of jobs the
country needs and the number actually available. 

Unemployment 

Mr. Bush will boast about the decline in
the unemployment rate from its June 2003 peak. But the
employed fraction of the population didn't rise at all;
unemployment declined only because some of those without
jobs stopped actively looking for work, and therefore
dropped out of the unemployment statistics. The labor force
participation rate - the fraction of the population either
working or actively looking for work - has fallen sharply
under Mr. Bush; if it had stayed at its January 2001 level,
the official unemployment rate would be 7.4 percent. 

The deficit 

Mr. Bush will claim that the recession and
9/11 caused record budget deficits. Congressional Budget
Office estimates show that tax cuts caused about two-thirds
of the 2004 deficit. 

The tax cuts 

Mr. Bush will claim that Senator John Kerry opposed "middle
class" tax cuts. But budget office numbers show that most
of Mr. Bush's tax cuts went to the best-off 10 percent of
families, and more than a third went to the top 1 percent,
whose average income is more than $1 million. 

The Kerry tax plan 

Mr. Bush will claim, once again,
that Mr. Kerry plans to raise taxes on many small
businesses. In fact, only a tiny percentage would be
affected. Moreover, as Mr. Kerry correctly pointed out last
week, the administration's definition of a small-business
owner is so broad that in 2001 it included Mr. Bush, who
does indeed have a stake in a timber company - a business
he's so little involved with that he apparently forgot
about it. 

Fiscal responsibility 

Mr. Bush will claim that Mr. Kerry proposes $2 trillion in
new spending. That's a partisan number and is much higher
than independent estimates. Meanwhile, as The Washington
Post pointed out after the Republican convention, the
administration's own numbers show that the cost of the
agenda Mr. Bush laid out "is likely to be well in excess of
$3 trillion" and "far eclipses that of the Kerry plan." 

Spending 

On Friday, Mr. Bush claimed that he had
increased nondefense discretionary spending by only 1
percent per year. The actual number is 8 percent, even
after adjusting for inflation. Mr. Bush seems to have
confused his budget promises - which he keeps on breaking -
with reality. 

Health care 

Mr. Bush will claim that Mr. Kerry wants to take medical
decisions away from individuals. The Kerry plan would
expand Medicaid (which works like Medicare), ensuring that
children, in particular, have health insurance. It would
protect everyone against catastrophic medical expenses, a
particular help to the chronically ill. It would do nothing
to restrict patients' choices. 

By singling out Mr. Bush's lies and misrepresentations, am
I saying that Mr. Kerry isn't equally at fault? Yes. 

Mr. Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers
nitpickers things to complain about. He talks of 1.6
million lost jobs; that's the private-sector loss, partly
offset by increased government employment. But the job
record is indeed awful. He talks of the $200 billion cost
of the Iraq war; actual spending is only $120 billion so
far. But nobody doubts that the war will cost at least
another $80 billion. The point is that Mr. Kerry can, at
most, be accused of using loose language; the thrust of his
statements is correct. 

Mr. Bush's statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally
dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that
failure is success. Journalists who play it safe by
spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr.
Kerry's choice of words are betraying their readers. 

E-mail: krugman at nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/12/opinion/12krugman.html?ex=1098605561&ei=1&en=f3d1fa7fc4e3d8c9

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