This page was last updated on February 14, 2012.
Political Prose: The GOP’s week to remember come November; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; February 11, 2012.
As you read this opinion column and his Twitter “tweets,” keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the BCT. 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.
“If you needed any more proof that Gov. Tom Corbett and his Teapublican sycophants in the state Legislature are intent on destroying Pennsylvania for the benefit of their Corporate Overlords you can look no further than last week.”
[RWC] Kudos to Mr. Prose for starting the name-calling before the end of the first sentence.
“First, Corbett unveiled a budget that again reduces government spending on the backs of the poor, elderly and higher education, but Ol’ Corby made sure to keep those corporate tax breaks for his cronies (i.e., campaign donors).”
[RWC] I swear, if the end were near, we’d see a headline like “World ends tomorrow on ‘the backs of the poor, elderly.’” It’s not original but it fits here.
What “corporate tax breaks?” You’ll note Mr. Prose not once presents anything from the proposed budget to support his assertions.
“Make no mistake, for all the GOP ‘live within our means’ faux-populism BS these education cuts are idiotically short-sighted and will ultimately be borne by middle-class families, who are quickly being priced out of higher education, or individual students, who will be saddled with crushing debt before they even start a career.”
[RWC] In case you missed it, Mr. Prose doesn’t go after the colleges for increasing tuition faster than the inflation rate, but instead blames a lack of state subsidies for “individual students, who will be saddled with crushing debt before they even start a career.” You can find more about this in my critique of “Corbett’s priorities make no sense” (Don Skinner, 3/13/11).
“Then came the laughably weak Marcellus shale bill that was a sloppy, wet kiss to the natural gas industry. How weak? Reuters’ Cate Long, a financial expert unlike our GOP shills, wrote that the state would leave $24 billion, yeah, BILLION, in fracking royalties on the table over 20 years and, depending on gas prices, it could reach $48 BILLION. That might send a kid or two to college, huh?
“‘Given the fiscal challenges of Pennsylvania, it would seem important to earn as much revenue as possible for the state’s natural resources,’ Long wrote. Hahaha. Good one, Cate.”
[RWC] Using Mr. Prose’s language, it appears Ms. Long is a lefty “shill.” In addition to being a Reuters guest contributor, Ms. Long writes or wrote for The Huffington Post. The posts Mr. Prose referred to are here. Let’s say we tax gas production to the tune of $24 billion to $48 billion. Does anyone doubt we’d still figure out a way to spend it all and have a deficit?
To conclude this topic, you’ll notice neither Ms. Long nor Mr. Prose mentioned the origin of the $24 billion to $48 billion and the last I checked the gas doesn’t come up with dollar bills attached. When it still wrote editorials, even the BCT finally conceded royalties/severance taxes are “a tax that is paid by consumers.” You see, businesses - like government - don’t have any money; it all belongs to the owner(s). One way or another, business taxes are paid by individuals - customers, employees, and owners. In the case of a customer, the gas producer will add the tax to the rate we consumers pay. There is no free lunch.
“We mock politicians, but gutting education, kneeling for Corporate Overlords and pillaging state resources aren’t laughing matters ... unless you’re Ol’ Corby and the GOP. Unfortunately, the joke’s on us.”
[RWC] Mr. Prose defines “gutting education” as increasing education spending by $183 million (1.8%). Again, when did the natural gas become the property of the Commonwealth, not the property of the land or mineral-rights holder?
“SEEN & HEARD
“• You should take whatever the conservative RedState.com says with a grain of salt. Why? Let us count the ways. In a Feb. 1 post by ‘davenj1,’ Christiana is from ‘Beaver City,’ he ‘may run’ for the 12th Congressional District seat, and Majority Dictator Mike Turzai ‘decided to enter the race.’”
[RWC] Given Mr. Prose’s body of work, you have to get a kick out of his “with a grain of salt” comment. As I’ve written many times before, please don’t accept or believe anything I write without performing your own independent research.
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.