The "fact-checking" press has become a parody of itself during the past several years.
It's not only because of their irritating penchant for putting statements by Republicans and conservatives under a twisted microscope while ignoring drop-dead obvious falsehoods delivered by Democrats and leftists. It's because, among other things, the fact-checkers often admit that a statement is true, but then proceed to essentially say, "So what?" They also take policy goals articulated by candidates, which may or may not come to pass, render an opinion that it can't be done, and then pretend that they've actually proven something. An example of each annoying habit was found in Tuesday evening's Associated Press "fact check" of statements made by Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush during the most recent Republican presidential candidates' debate.
Earlier today, I demonstrated that Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak, the two AP reporters involved, promoted fiction instead of fact when they tried to refute Dr. Ben Carson's claim that “Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.” The evidence is overwhelmingly on Carson's side, as "85 percent of the best research points to a loss of jobs following a minimum wage increase" (it also appears likely that the remaining 15 percent show little or no impact). The AP pair presented no credible specifics in support of their countervailing claim that job loss "usually doesn’t happen."
The pair's other two obvious howlers start with their critique of Jeb Bush's articulation of a goal for economic growth:
JEB BUSH: “We could get to 4 percent growth.”
THE FACTS: That’s a highly improbable target because of forces in the economy that are beyond the control of any president.
Those forces have been decades in the making: an exodus from the workforce of the huge generation of baby boomers, rising automation and low-wage competition overseas. Those factors and more have limited income growth, which in turn cuts into the consumer spending that drives most economic growth.
Bush frequently holds out hope of 4 percent growth, but even conservative economists who like his fiscal and tax plans consider it a false hope. According to current forecasts, growth is expected to average roughly half that rate.
This is at least the third time — the other two I'm aware of were in August and June — that the AP has gone after Bush for daring to believe that the U.S. economy can return to a 4 percent average growth trajectory.
As I've noted previously, it's not as if it hasn't been been done before. As seen here:
- Growth during the five years from 1983 to 1987 averaged 4.75 percent.
- Growth during the five years from 1996 to 2000 averaged 4.41 percent.
Additionally, compound annual growth in the state of Florida during Jeb Bush's gubernatorial terms was 4.35 percent, and during one three-year period was a sizzling 5.47 percent. The fact that Bush was able to exceed his currently stated target as chief executive of the Sunshine State somehow doesn't matter one whit to the AP's naysayers.
Rugaber and Boak conveniently failed to cite overarching, time-consuming, often-duplicative and frequently contradictory regulations as a reason to be pessimistic about the U.S. economy's ability to get back to 4 percent growth. Instead of clearing out the regulatory underbrush, the Obama administration has been feeding it steroids. Virtual regulatory tyranny, which includes Obamacare, and trillions of dollars in never-ending misguided Keynesian "stimulus," have only succeeded in placing the nation dangerously in debt, while cutting its current growth potential to about half of Jeb Bush's desired figure. Returns to common sense in both arenas would likely create the conditions for it happening again.
In any event, the AP pair acts as if the very act of making such a statement places Jeb Bush somewhere between a snake-oil salesman and an outright liar. That they and "most economists" don't think his goal is achievable doesn't make it unachievable. "Most economists" also thought that Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and the Bill Clinton-GOP Congress axis couldn't consistently achieve 4 percent — but they did.
"Fact-checking" a goal is bad enough. "Fact-checking" a fact and deciding that it's not an appropriate thing to assert because it makes the other side look bad, even though it's true, goes over the top. That's what Rugaber and Boak did with an obviously true assertion made by Senator Ted Cruz:
TED CRUZ: Since 2008, the economy has grown on average only 1.2 percent a year, showing “the Obama economy is a disaster.”
THE FACTS: That average is correct as far as it goes, but it masks the fact that Obama inherited a raging recession in his first year, when the economy shrank by 2.5 percent. In the five years since, the economy expanded an average of 2 percent, more than Cruz’s figure but still a relatively weak recovery in historical terms.
So what, guys? What you wrote doesn't render what Cruz said false — and if you really want to go into what Barack Obama "inherited," we can bring up the fact that he talked down the economy during the entire second half of 2008 and did several things during the presidential transition period which deepened the recession. We can and should also note that his "stimulus package" lengthened the recession and weakened the economy's subsequent (if you really want to call it that) recovery.
Cruz is hardly engaging hyperbole when he characterizes what has been by far the worst recovery from a recession since World War II as a "disaster." Ask the tens of millions of households whose incomes are nowhere near recovery from where they were 8 years ago and the millions of Americans working as temps or in multiple part-time jobs whether they agree with Cruz's "disaster" characterization. Rest assured, even if they don't blame Obama, they will.
At the AP, Politifact and so many other establishment press outlets, "fact checking" has become a farcical excuse to bash Republicans and conservatives. Nothing more, nothing less.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
