{"id":32373,"date":"2012-12-13T12:10:12","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T18:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=32373"},"modified":"2012-12-13T13:08:50","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T19:08:50","slug":"standing-pat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=32373","title":{"rendered":"Standing Pat"},"content":{"rendered":"

I heard this last week on “Poligraph”, MPR’s self-styled “Politifact” homage<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“Poligraph” reporter Catherine Richert was “fact-checking” statements from the GOP and DFL about the state budget. \u00a0She quoted Governor Messinger<\/del> Dayton<\/a>:<\/p>\n

You know,[the wealthiest] were paying the higher rates during the 1990s when President Clinton was in office, and we enjoyed boom years in the states. We had the highest real per capita family income in 1999 than we’ve had in our history. Since then, we’ve dropped almost 9 percent from that high in the aftermath of the Minnesota tax cuts in 1999 and 2000, and also the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.” – Gov. Mark Dayton”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You don’t have to be a economist, or even a conservative, to understand where this is wrong. \u00a0You merely have to be somewhat curious, and care a little bit about history.<\/p>\n

Richert’s response:<\/p>\n

Dayton made this statement in response to a question about Republican concerns that a state tax increase on the wealthiest to close the budget gap, which has been a priority for Dayton, and the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts on the federal level would hurt the state’s economy.<\/p>\n

Dayton was arguing that their logic is flawed because tax cuts don’t always correspond with a strong economy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, no. \u00a0Governor Messinger<\/del> Dayton was correlating prosperity with a causation, higher taxes and a Democrat president.<\/p>\n

Now, I’ll give Catherine Richert the benefit of the doubt; as a self-styled “fact-checker”, she’s hobbled by needing to refer to other “Fact-checkers”, the WaPo and the woefully-misnamed “Politifact”, whose institutional bias in these matters is itself a fact:<\/p>\n

It’s true that the wealthiest paid more in federal income taxes during the Clinton years. Clinton raised the top marginal rate from 31 percent to nearly 40 percent. It also happened to be a time of strong economic growth, partly because of Clinton and George H. W. Bush’s broader fiscal policies, which lead to lower interest rates and lots of activity on Wall Street, as reported by the Washington Post and PolitiFact.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, if the WaPo and Politifact say so. \u00a0The paragraph itself shows the extent to which MPR’s reporting on the subject is based on the major media’s narrative; those “broader fiscal policies” involved\u00a0a very pro-business climate<\/em>, tax hikes notwithstanding.<\/p>\n

Richert, the WaPo, Politifact, and Governor Messinger<\/del> Dayton glossed over – or didn’t know – the larger historical causation for the correlation:<\/p>\n