J.D. Prose – 8/2/11

This page was last updated on August 3, 2011.

Local congressmen react to debt ceiling deal; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; August 2, 2011.

The comments in this section are the boilerplate text I use in my critiques of Mr. Prose’s overtly opinion columns. This article was in the BCT “news” section.

As you read this opinion column and his Twitter “tweets,” keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the Times. In addition to being an entertainer/pundit, Mr. Prose is a part-time reporter covering political stories. Ask yourself this. When a pundit gives his political opinions in one part of the paper, can he be trusted to report politics objectively elsewhere in the paper? After all, would a person whose opinion is 1+1 equals 3 report 1+1 really equals 2? Does he have a “Chinese wall” in his head to keep his opinions from bleeding into his reporting? (You may recall NPR claimed it fired Juan Williams for doing exactly what Mr. Prose does.) If it can get worse than that, Mr. Prose has made name-calling and personal attacks a foundation of his columns. If pushed, I’d be willing to bet Mr. Prose would try to excuse his writing by claiming he’s paid to be controversial and stir debate. The problem is, you don’t need to get into name-calling and personal attacks to accomplish those goals.

You can find the archive of my Prose column critiques here.

Below is a detailed critique of portions of this column.

“As President Barack Obama signed the debt-ceiling deal Tuesday and Congress went on recess, three local House members shared their various thoughts on the controversial measure.”

[RWC] Over the years I’ve noted op-ed sections are a trick to make us think opinion is limited to the op-ed pages while everything else is straight-up objective reporting. This “news” article is an example. You’ll note Mr. Prose doesn’t identify his info sources. For example, did Mr. Prose interview Messrs. Altmire, Doyle, and Murphy, or is the piece based on articles from AP, Reuters, et cetera?

“U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-4, McCandless Township, said he voted for the bill because time was getting short and ‘so you wouldn’t have the credit markets worrying about the political process.’

“Altmire said the bill, which extends debt-ceiling increases into 2013, gives financial markets some stability as opposed to short-term deals that were being discussed.

“‘If we learned anything it’s nobody on the planet would think it’s a good idea to do this again six months from now,’ he said.”

[RWC] Translation: Democrats – and especially President Obama - didn’t want increasing the debt ceiling to be an election-year issue.

“Altmire, a conservative ‘Blue Dog’ Democrat, called the deal a ‘centrist, bipartisan bill’ that left those on the far edges of each party unhappy. However, Altmire said he was pleased that the deal did not cut Social Security and veterans benefits, and that pay for those serving in the military would continue.”

[RWC] This is continuation of efforts by Mr. Prose and the BCT to portray Mr. Altmire as a “centrist,” “moderate,” “conservative Democrat,” et cetera. Remember, a Democrat can get this portrayal simply by having a Liberal Quotient (Americans for Democrat Action terminology) of less than 100%.

“U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-14, Forest Hills, a more liberal Democrat, voted against the debt agreement. ‘It’s a bad deal. It’s not a compromise. We got nothing,’ said Doyle, whose district includes Pittsburgh as well as Coraopolis, Kennedy Township and parts of Robinson Township.”

[RWC] Referring to Mr. Doyle simply as “a more liberal Democrat” doesn’t tell the whole story. During 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, Mr. Doyle voted for ADA positions 75 times (plus three non-votes) out of 80 votes and had an American Conservative Union (ACU) rating of 2% for the same period and a lifetime (16 years) rating of 17.1%.

Mr. Prose failed to note what Mr. Doyle said about Tea Party members of the House. Mr. Doyle said, “We have negotiated with terrorists. This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.” I guess Mr. Prose ran out of space. <g> As soon as Mr. Doyle learned his comments made it out of the confines of a closed meeting of the Democrat Caucus, he claimed “I wasn’t talking about the Tea Party.”

“Doyle said Obama talked about ‘shared sacrifice’ in addressing the nation’s debt, but the Republican Party, which had to mollify the far-right Tea Party wing, refused to consider raising taxes on the wealthy or ending subsidies for profitable oil companies.”

[RWC] As I’ve noted previously (Examples are here, here, and here.), “shared sacrifice” is leftyspeak for tax rate increases on those already paying the highest effective rates.

Shouldn’t a reporter have noted “subsidies for profitable oil companies” is leftyspeak for provisions of the tax code available to all businesses, like depreciation of capital expenditures? The feds are not writing subsidy checks for oil companies. Other leftyspeak for provisions of the tax code lefties don’t like includes “loopholes,” “spending in the tax code,” and “tax expenditures.” You may recall Mr. Obama used this linguistic gymnastics to claim one of his unserious proposals was 100% spending cuts.

Shouldn’t a reporter have noted 2008 federal income tax data shows the top 1% (AGI greater than $380,000) of filers paid 38% of the total and the top 5% (AGI greater than $160,000) paid 59%? The bottom 50% (AGI less than $33,000) paid less than 2.6% of the total. That reporter would have asked Mr. Doyle what tax rate on “the wealthy” Mr. Doyle would consider fair.

You’ll note Mr. Prose didn’t describe what makes the “Tea Party wing” “far-right.”

“Democrats, he said, backed down, and Republicans got their way.”

[RWC] While it’s possible some “Republicans got their way,” conservatives absolutely did not. Is our budget cut and balanced? Nope. Will the budget be balanced within the next 10 years? Nope. Are we reducing our debt? Nope. Is an automatic tax increase coming in January 2013 when the Bush-era tax rates expire and our rates return to their Clinton-administration levels? Yep.

“‘I represent working-class folks in Pittsburgh. I don’t represent the upper class,’ Doyle said. ‘I just think my people are being asked to carry this weight.’”

[RWC] Aren’t our representatives supposed to represent all of us? It’s interesting Mr. Doyle sees his constituents as members of groups/classes, not as individuals. What exactly did “the upper class” in Mr. Doyle’s district do to deserve his animosity? This sounds like “locker-room” material to me. As a reminder, “working-class folks” is leftyspeak for labor union members.

As for “I just think my people are being asked to carry this weight,” are those people among the 50% of federal income tax filers who pay less than 2.6% of the total? What about those who receive “refunds” even though they have no fed income tax liability?

“Doyle said the deal was anything but the centrist compromise that Altmire described. ‘To say this is a meeting in the middle? This is a meeting almost on the far right,’ scoffed Doyle.”

[RWC] “[A]lmost on the far right?” This says far more about Mr. Doyle’s position than it does the right. As I asked above, what did the right get of substance?

“U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-18, Upper St. Clair Township, was also unhappy, but for different reasons.”

[RWC] Though a Republican, Mr. Murphy doesn’t appear to be a rock-ribbed conservative. Over the last four years, Mr. Murphy’s ACU rating ranged from 50% to 68% and his ADA LQ ranged from 15% to 60%.

“‘I’m unhappy that we have this problem, that we have this deficit, that the debt is so high,’ he said. ‘I’m unhappy that we had to raise (the debt ceiling).’

“Raising taxes on those making over $250,000 annually and ending corporate subsidies would not have solved the problem, either, said Murphy, whose district includes Moon, North Fayette, Findlay and Crescent townships, along with parts of Robinson.”

[RWC] As for raising tax rates “on those making over $250,000 annually,” that’s for families filing a joint return. It’s $200,000 for taxpayers filing as an individual. A real reporter would have noted this fact. Though it didn’t happen in this article, when lefties refer to millionaires and billionaires they mean those of us making more than $200,000/$250,000 per year.

I was going to criticize Mr. Murphy for using the leftyspeak “corporate subsidies,” but a quick Google search returned no hits other than this article. Since this paragraph appears not to be a quote of Mr. Murphy, it could be a case of Mr. Prose substituting leftyspeak for the words Mr. Murphy actually used.

“And, Murphy said raising taxes would not spur job growth.

“‘I’m looking upon it this way — that this wasn’t the time,’ Murphy said of tax hikes.

“The so-called ‘Super Congress’ bipartisan committee that will meet in the fall should work ‘in a way that’s cooperative’ to solve the nation’s financial woes, he said.

“‘I think everything should be put on the table,’ Murphy said.”

[RWC] I’m sorry to read Mr. Murphy said this. Increasing tax rates on anyone is demonstrably the wrong thing to do and agreeing to any in the name of compromise is wrong.

“With approval ratings abysmally low, the one thing all three congressmen agreed on was that Congress only has itself to blame.

“‘This is the problem that members bring upon themselves,’ acknowledged Murphy, who said debate is good, ‘but the insults should have been left silent.’

“Altmire said Americans’ views of Congress are ‘unfortunate, and that’s because of the process.’ He said the bickering damaged the world’s trust in America’s economic and political system as well as frustrating constituents.

“‘I would not have it dragged out the way it did,’ Altmire said.

“When asked about Congress’ reputation among Americans, Doyle was characteristically blunt. ‘I’m disgusted. I understand how they feel,’ he said. ‘People just want us to get our work done.’”