J.D. Prose – 6/16/12

This page was last updated on June 18, 2012.

Shell cracks gas, Gov. cracks the bank, we crack wise; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; June 16, 2012.

According to his Twitter page, Mr. Prose is a self-described “Surly progressive.” 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.

“Anyway, the one thing we’ll never miss is arguing over whether companies that make billions in profits — BILLIONS — should be given tax credits for billions — BILLIONS — more to entice them to build here.”

[RWC] If we had an economy-friendly environment (a responsible regulatory, spending, and tax environment) everyone could benefit from everyday without government involvement, there would be no perceived need for this stuff. In that case, the usual suspects would still complain because they believe in the philosophy of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.”

According to the Tax Foundation in 2010, “If Pennsylvania were its own country, it would have the highest overall corporate tax rate in the world at 41.5% (federal plus state, accounting for the state-local deduction).” If you don’t care about PA’s position in the world, BCT editorial “Snow job” noted “[PA’s] business tax climate index ranks 26th in the nation for fiscal 2011.” If you want to put a “positive” spin on this, PA is #1 in the bottom half. If we were addressing the Steelers, would we consider finishing 17th out of 32 teams (the equivalent of 26th out of 50 states) at the end of the season a good situation?

Mr. Prose seems to forget “companies that make billions in profits — BILLIONS” pay billions in taxes — “BILLIONS.” According to President Obama’s 2013 budget, corporations paid $370 billion in federal income taxes for the 2007 tax year, the last before the recession kicked in. That figure dropped to $181 billion for the 2011 tax year. According to the Tax Foundation, business taxes are approximately seven percent of our total personal tax burden. That is, seven out of 100 tax dollars we pay are business taxes.

“We might be a little less suspicious of the Mother of All Corporate Giveaways if Corbett and his minions hadn’t spent the last few years hanging ‘Open for Business’ signs on the corpses of education and social services while downplaying environmental fears over drilling. All right. Probably not, but we did say might.”

[RWC] Mr. Corbett took office as Governor in January 2011. Mr. Prose apparently defines “few years” as less than one-and-a-half years. Note Mr. Prose didn’t describe how “Corbett and his minions … spent the last few years hanging ‘Open for Business’ signs on the corpses of education and social services while downplaying environmental fears over drilling.”

“And, it doesn’t help matters that the Guv’nah is passing along unsubstantiated rumors to bolster his cracker tax credit argument. Didn’t hear that? Well, Scott Detrow of StateImpact Pennsylvania reported Friday that Corbett’s using the specter of Ohio and West Virginia swooping in to steal our cracker to sell the $1.65 BILLION credit.”

[RWC] If you’re familiar with Mr. Prose’s body of work, you have to give him credit for chutzpah when he complains about alleged “unsubstantiated rumors.” Mr. Prose routinely cites anonymous sources like “Democratic Mole,” “Republican Moles,” and so on.

Mr. Prose failed to note StateImpact Pennsylvania “is a collaboration among [left-leaning] NPR and local public radio stations in eight pilot states to examine public policy issues in-depth.” When Mr. Prose omits a group’s ideological leaning, that’s usually a sign the group at a minimum leans to the left.

“‘I can tell you from what I hear — I can’t even attribute it to anybody because it’s passed along secondhand — that Ohio is still trying to lure that away, as is West Virginia,’ Detrow quoted Corbett as saying Tuesday. Oh, my, let’s make it an even $2 BILLION tax credit then! Mercy!!!

“What? Detrow checked and W.Va. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s office denied any ongoing discussions with Shell while Ohio hadn’t responded by Friday? Hmmm...

“It’s stuff like this, along with, you know, systematically destroying public education and social services, that has earned Corbett a whopping approval rating of 36 percent from voters, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.”

[RWC] Mr. Prose wrote Mr. Corbett has “a whopping approval rating of 36 percent from voters.” Not exactly. According to the survey, “From June 5 - 10, Quinnipiac University surveyed 997 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.” For whatever reason, polling “registered voters” usually gives a different result than polling only those who regularly vote. In any case, I’m not a fan of popularity polls.

Mr. Prose didn’t tell us how Mr. Corbett is “systematically destroying public education and social services.”

“President Barack Obama leads Gov. Mittens 46 percent to 40 percent in that same poll even though, inexplicably, voters gave Mittens the nod in job creation 45 to 43 percent. Yes, the same Mittens who ran Massachusetts when it ranked 47th among the states in job creation.

“So, we have a governor with an abysmal approval rating and a GOP presidential candidate with less-than-stellar numbers. What happens now? Why, they team up and campaign together, of course!!”

[RWC] Even if “Massachusetts … ranked 47th among the states in job creation” during Mr. Romney’s tenure, the statistic is misleading. Mr. Prose didn’t mention the Massachusetts unemployment rate dropped from 5.6% when Mr. Romney took office in January 2003 to 4.6% when he left office in January 2007. Around 5% is considered “full employment.”