Politifact Hackery Classics
By So apparently there’s another Robert Farley on the intarwebs who writes for America’s most useless website. To ensure that this Robert Farley was not confused with ours, I thought I should point out one of his embarrassing arguments, and since this is PolitiFact you know there’s going to be an embarrassing argument. And here we go. Here is the statement from President Obama being evaluated:
“If wealthy individuals are willing to simply go back to the rates that existed back in the 1990s when rich people were doing very well — it’s not like they were poor — and by the way, that’s when we saw the highest job growth rates, and that’s when we saw the highest — the greatest reduction in poverty, and that’s when we saw businesses very profitable — if the wealthiest among us — and I include myself in this category — are willing to give up a little bit more, then we can solve this problem. It does not take a lot.
“And I just have to say, when people say, job-killing tax increases, that’s what Obama is proposing, we’re not going to — you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. And the facts are that a modest increase for wealthy individuals is not shown to have an adverse impact on job growth.
“I mean, we can test the two theories. You had what happened during the ‘90s — right? Taxes for wealthy individuals were somewhat higher, businesses boomed, the economy boomed, great job growth. And then the 2000s, when taxes were cut on wealthy individuals, jobs didn’t grow as fast, businesses didn’t grow as fast. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t tried what these other folks are pitching. It didn’t work. And we should go with what works.”
You’ll note first that every factual claim here is indisputably accurate, which seems rather important to a “fact-checking.” Second, you’ll note here that the implied causal claim is couched as conditional and tentative: “is not shown.” The interpretation of the indisputable facts is entirely reasonable, although the stronger claim implied by the last paragraph is contestable.
Farley’s rating? “Half-true.” Facts he disputes? None, because he can’t. But he talked to someone at the Cato Institute and a couple others who dispute his interpretation of the facts without disputing the facts, which somehow makes the facts less factual. As always, the core problem with PolitiFact is that it doesn’t seem to understand what “facts” are.