Whose words?

Many are happy to interpret recent election results, but to me it's simple. People are out of work and taking it out on their elected officials.

According to my statistical analysis of past elections, the unemployment rate has been responsible for about a third of switched congressional seats. Further, when the unemployment rate is above about 7 percent, that contribution leaps to somewhere between half and two thirds.

When unemployment is high it is a huge factor in house seats being lost by the president's party. When unemployment is low, other factors come more into play.

Based on this theory, you could have predicted that Democrats would lose at least 40 seats in the House without looking at a single news story, poll result, party platform, or campaign ad.

But there's more to this story.

[more]

W's last laugh

It's not totally correct to blame the pending tax increase on Bush. Although the 43rd President did push for and sign the law, it was Congress (primarily the Republicans) who came up with this clever scheme and wrote the laws that will raise all of our taxes on Jan. 1.

The tax acts of 2001 and 2003 included temporary tax cuts followed by corresponding increases. Republican marketing at the time focused on tax relief, but today's press focuses on the tax increase, conveniently while the other party holds the Presidency and Congress. The GOP gets all of the credit and none of the blame, in an election year to boot. Brilliant.

Of course, at the time there was no way to know Democrats would be in power when the tax increase was scheduled to tax place. That's just happy coincidence.

The sunset provision was purely a political ploy. By keeping the tax cuts in effect for fewer than ten years, Republicans could sidestep rules that would have required paying for them, a tacit admission that tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

[more]

McCain Claims his Tax Increases will Hurt Economy

Senator McCain has told us that Senator Obama's planned tax increases will harm the economy. And he's promised us that he, himself, Senator McCain will raise taxes on nobody.

But here's the rub. Just like President Bush, McCain has proposed raising taxes as part of his health care proposal. The only thing is, he doesn't call it a tax increase.

It's not just a tax increase. The Senator from Arizona has proposed a whole new tax. In McCain's plan, employer-provided health insurance will be taxed as income. He has also proposed a tax credit to offset the cost of health insurance. But if an employer provides a really good plan, that tax credit may not be enough to offset the new tax.

Even McCain has admitted that some some people will see increased taxes because of his plan. But, he denies that this qualifies as a tax increase, since there are compensating tax reductions.

Consider, though, that Senator Obama's "tax increases" that "will hurt the economy" also decrease the tax burden on a large majority and increase on a small number. And, both plans claim that the tax increases are offset by the tax cuts.

So, Senator McCain, you have to tell us. Are you going to admit that you are proposing a tax increase just like Obama? Or are you going to give Obama a pass, because in reality he is proposing nothing different than you are?

Or are you going to continue these silly word games?

Fun with Numbers

In my high school physics class, I discovered something called "dry labbing". When you dry lab, you figure out how the experiment is supposed to turn out, then you log results in your lab notebook that correspond to what you figured out (rather than having to go through the entire exercise). I reasoned that it wasn't a real science experiment anyway, because we were just demonstrating a well-known principle, rather than trying to find out something new. Also, you had to understand the material better to make up the results than you would to just write down what happened. Not to mention that for a clumsy adolescent science is never repeatable.

Needless to say, I only got to do this once, before I learned another valuable lesson that had nothing to do with physics. The lesson is, anybody can fudge the numbers, and in doing so can prove just about anything they want. Or, as Benjamin Disraeli said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

For example, take politics. In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush said, "Every year of my presidency, we've reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending." Come on, now, how long did he and his speech writers have to think before coming up with something that sounded positive and couldn't later be shown to be wrong?

Here's the recipe:

• First, decide what point you want to prove.


• Second, come up with some numbers (it doesn't matter what or from where) that are related to your point.


• Third, state your point, along with the numbers, in close proximity, with conviction.


• Repeat the third step as required, until your numbers are accepted as a given and your point is accepted as the logical conclusion of your numbers.

Another example is the economic case for/against tax cuts. It's been proven that tax cuts improve the economy. It's also, coincidentally, been proven that tax cuts are bad for the economy.

What's the lesson? Well, I guess it is that when somebody is able to prove their point with statistics, they are probably hiding more than they are showing.