9/7 Brendan: Wilentz's tax illogic

How can a tax cut be "an illusion"?

That's the question that comes to mind after reading Princeton professor Sean Wilentz's Sunday San Francisco Chronicle column, which illustrates the excessive lengths to which some liberals have gone to criticize a tax "rebate" first proposed by Democrats that was later incorporated into President Bush's tax cut.

Wilentz writes that "[t]he lies surrounding these particular checks ... would have made George Orwell wince". The rebate is not a rebate at all, Wilentz states, but "an advance on a refund to which you would have been entitled next April anyway." Therefore, he concludes, "[i]t is, at best, an eight-month interest free loan of your own money".

Wilentz is correct that the "rebate" is an up-front payment on a reduction in the lowest marginal federal tax rate rather than a retroactive rebate of previously paid taxes. And he's right that it is designed to encourage consumer spending to stimulate the economy. However, to say that this is an "illusion" designed to trick people into thinking that they "have come into some 'found money'" is misleading. If the marginal tax rate provision had not passed as part of the tax bill, taxpayers would have paid that much more in federal taxes overall. In that sense, it is found money, and not "an interest free loan of your own money".

It's fine to question, as Wilentz does, the policy of sending part of the tax cut as a lump sum check called a rebate, but it's deceptive to define away the real financial benefit it represents to do so.

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Related links:
-Kuttner's tax-increase euphamism (Brendan Nyhan, 6/5)
-Recycling Rhetoric: Media Coverage of the Bush Tax Cut (Ben Fritz, 5/29)
-Where's the outrage? (Brendan Nyhan, 5/11)

9/7/2001 08:05:20 AM EST |

9/6 Bryan: Dowd's ad-hoc psychologizing

Maureen Dowd may not be a psychologist, but she certainly acts like she knows what's going on inside George W. Bush's head when it comes to missile defense.

In her latest column, Dowd uses an especially nasty rhetorical technique: alleging some sort of mental illness in a political actor in an effort to discredit their policies. Dowd begins with a list of literary obsessions, mostly sexual: Proust's Swann and Odette, Aschenbach and a blond boy in "Death in Venice," Humbert Humbert and the underage Lolita, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and Ahab and his white whale. Then Dowd asks:

And why can George W. Bush think of nothing but a missile shield? Our president is caught in the grip of an obsession worthy of literature.

Dowd's strategy: portray George W. Bush as mentally unstable and link that instability to missile defense, thus discrediting both the man and the issue. She tells us about "W.'s urgent, self-destructive craving" for missile defense, repeatedly refers to his desire for such a system as an "obsession," and calls it an "ecstatic fantasy." She concludes that "the world might be a safer place if W. stuck with his other obsession: demanding that the White House mess offer up three kinds of jelly with its pb&j's."

This isn't an argument about missile defense. It's a Freudian analysis that irrationally attempts to make the President and his policies appear stupid without ever having to confront them directly.

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Related links:
-Daschle-bashing 102 - Armchair psychology and the "energy crisis" (Bryan Keefer, 5/30)
-Jargon 101: Pardons and Punditry (Bryan Keefer, 4/9)

9/6/2001 07:58:50 AM EST |

9/5 Ben: Bush suspects, therefore he is

In a photo opportunity with Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott yesterday, President Bush used one of our favorite illogical spin techniques, the "maybe ... therefore" clause. Here’s how it works. Generalize or hypothesize about your opponents’ agenda by using a phrase like "apparently," "seems to," or, if you’re a Texan like our president, "reckon," and then make your argument as if that uncertainty "maybe" is a fact.

In an effort to paint all who question his tax cut's impact on the deficit and economy as proponents of a tax increase, President Bush actually used the "maybe ... therefore" three times during his photo op today. The first use came in his initial remarks, while the second and third examples came in response to reporters' questions:

1) Some are arguing that maybe we ought to roll back the taxes. I guess they're saying that. They're now against tax relief, and if you're against tax relief, it must mean you're for maybe rolling it back. I think that would be terrible for the economy. Most Americans understand that as well.

2) And I repeat, I reckon some of them up here want to roll it back. But they're going to meet strong opposition, I know, from the White House and I know from Senator Lott as well.

3) And of course, there will be second-guessers here in Washington. And I suspect those who are second-guessing really are saying, we'd like to get rid of that tax relief, we'd like to roll back the tax relief. And I'm going to resist that mightily, and I call upon the leadership on both sides of the aisle not to fall prey to a false set of economic assumptions that say if you raise taxes it'll help the economy. It will hurt the economy.

"Some" ... "maybe" ... "guess" ... "reckon" ... "suspect" ... President Bush doesn't seem confident of his opponents’ intentions. He suddenly becomes sure, though, when he states twice that this hypothetical move will hurt the economy and that he will resist.

Of course, it is true that some Democrats support rolling back the Bush tax cuts, which, in some cases, could mean a tax increase. For now, though, Democrats have primarily stuck to criticizing Bush for allegedly breaking his word by tapping into the Social Security surplus. Rather than put words into his opponents' mouth in order to set up an easy argument, Bush should argue for his policies and only criticize Democrats for what they actually say. Then we won't have to worry about what some of them apparently might be suspected of saying, we guess.

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Related links:
-DuPont uses selective specifics to spin Social Security debate (Ben Fritz, 8/29)
-An APB for intellectual honesty on Social Security privatization (Brendan Nyhan, 8/22)
-Novak's welcome-back gift for Congress: Social Security spin (Ben Fritz, 8/20)
-Using "Changing the Tone" to Suppress Criticism (Brendan Nyhan, 6/4)

9/4/2001 11:19:36 PM EST |

9/4 column: The Evolving Jargon of "Clintonization"

By Brendan Nyhan

Politics is, in part, a rhetorical battle that extends to the meaning of words themselves. That's why it's important that Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes" and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh independently used the term "Clintonization" in the last two weeks. First appropriated by conservatives during Clinton's second term, the word is now being turned into increasingly vague jargon designed to trigger negative perceptions of Clinton. (read the whole column)

9/4/2001 05:21:09 AM EST |

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