RSS Feed MenuBruce Bartlett crunches the numbers on our FrumForum tea party survey, and discovers a view of the world at variance with some basic economic realities.
Tuesday’s Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.
Tea Partyers also seem to have a very distorted view of the direction of federal taxes. They were asked whether they are higher, lower or the same as when Barack Obama was inaugurated last year. More than two-thirds thought that taxes are higher today, and only 4% thought they were lower; the rest said they are the same.
As noted earlier, federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president.
Read it all in Bruce Bartlett’s column in today’s Forbes.com.
Carney // Mar 19, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Bartlett has walked away from the conservative movement and even conservative ideas, both of which he now bitterly scorns. OK, fine – it’s not at all unheard-off for people, even public intellectuals, to change their ideological convictions, in one direction or another.
But he should not be cited uncritically as a respected conservative authority by a website purporting to be conservative. Doing so is misleading, as if one were citing Gary Wills on a Catholic blog or David Brock on a media or judicial/social conservative blog.
As to the substance, firstly, Bartlett is flat-out wrong that populism has never been translated into policy. He may want to visit a local ATM and withdraw a 20 dollar bill, and ponder the identity and policies of the president displayed on it.
Secondly, what’s the point of “gotcha” games when it comes to the portion of GDP and such? Isn’t the larger reality, that Obama & Co. are political forces bent on increasing that portion dramatically over time, and that that is a bad thing, much more relevant and important?
dragonlady // Mar 19, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Normally I would lend weight to Bartlett’s theories, but he’s pulling up data most average Americans don’t follow to discredit the tea party. I’d bet if you asked these same Qs to either Repubs, Independents, or Dems, they would give you the same answer, with the exception maybe, of whether taxes have gone up or down under Obama (here I think Dems would say accurately they have go down). But those stimulative measures are just temporary. Here he disregards the rather accurate prediction from folks across the spectrum (check the polls) that expect their taxes will eventually go up under the Obama administration. And Bartlett knows better than to count tax credits as tax cuts–they do not have the same effect on a person’s economic behavior. And populism never impacted policy? What happened when Bush I ran for office? A guy name Perot wound up on the scene and Clinton ended up being elected!!!
What plagues his analysis is what plagues Frum alot–they look down at people they think aren’t as smart as them. Ironically Bartlett hasn’t really proven his intellect with this rather shallow and mediocore article. He’s better off sticking to economic analysis vs political analysis.
sdspringy // Mar 19, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Poor David, using Bartlett to pull a drive by on the Tea Party goers.
And you could at least hold Bartlett accountable over his misrepresentation of Obama’s tax cut. It wasn’t a tax cut but a one time rebate. There is a difference.
Poor David
franco 2 // Mar 19, 2010 at 2:06 pm
This is my original comment on Tim Mak’s take, but it also applies to Bartlett and the survey in general. Bartlett is sophisticated enough not to delve into the more absurd speculations and charges, still he’s wrong on the substance and his silly conclusions. I’m writing Forbes. This is just bad journalism.
Here is my original comment:
First Mr. Mak sets up a bogus “survey” of 60 people at one rally in order to pretend to be objective.
Mr Mak, in his own inimitable way, is reporting the obvious and dressing it as news, then adding his own spin. The latter is the only thing that those seeking more information about Tea Part protesters don’t have – Tim Mak’s spin. Frum Forum is a political site (despite the gossipy sidebars that Frum assumes will attract more readers) so everyone here knows what TPers stand for generally. They are protesting high taxes and government spending. You can read the signs, Tim. You can listen to the speakers, Tim.
There is, however, a lot of controversy about what motivates TPers ranging from racism to astroturfed Republicans to gun-toting rabid anarchists. No questions regarding these controversies were asked.
Why Mr. Mak asks protesters questions about other people’s taxes, expecting an accurate answer is absurd. There are so very many variables in our tax code that any question like this is purely up to the respondent to interpret, and accuracy of their responses can’t be measured unless specific meanings of words like “typical family” and “taxes” are defined. In the case of the word “taxes”, are Social Security taxes considered or not? We don’t know.
Mr. Mak makes broad statements that have little or no basis in fact.”The economy, writ large, appears to be improving….” Mak attaches no citation of evidence for this, really laughable, assertion.
These TPers weren’t motivated to protest because of tax rates for other people, but because of their own rates. This is obvious, but it’s an important distinction that Mr Mak seems oblivious to, unless he’s just trying (feebly) to impugn these folks, which of course he quite transparently is.
Most people, when asked about taxes, respond with total amounts that come OUT of their pockets – without considering where the tax money ends up, so any question that wishes to separate federal taxes from state, property and local taxes needs to emphasize that distinction. IE “How much FEDERAL, excluding state and local taxes, do you think….”
On another level, this question rather badly misses the whole point. These people are not protesting some abstractions in the tax code, as Tim Mak believes they should, they are not a bevy of accountants and IRS agents, they are real people protesting their own tax rates, this should be enough evidence that they have some justification for attending rallies and carrying signs, do they also have to be representative of people who aren’t there to be legitimate in Mak’s eyes?
Mr. Mak takes a faux scientific approach as though he’s a cultural anthropologist visiting some remote village in Borneo asking, obscure, badly phrased, and culturally biased questions. Or perhaps not Borneo that’s a real country – maybe a better example would be Guernsey. Did you know Guernsey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey is one of the countries that has a longer life expectancy than the USA? Who knew?
Mr. Mak chooses to use the CIA ranking attempting to discredit TPers knowledge of US ranking in the world by country. In this case, Mak doesn’t mention that the CIA has a very narrow definition of the word “country”. TPers should not be blamed for picking “11th” as the answer – in fact it is quite accurate when you apply the more commonly understood definition of “country” to the CIA’s list.
That is – The US Virgin Islands is called a “country”. Also Andorra, Macau, San Marino, Iceland, Bermuda, Monaco, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, Guernsey, Faroe Islands, Saint Pierre and Mingelon, Isle of Mann, Waliss and Fortuna… all of these localities are ahead of the USA
Even stipulating that these places may technically be called “countries”, which is stretching things to be sure, they are better described as island paradises, tax havens, playgrounds for billionaires and assorted duchies with homogeneous populations, supremely strict immigration enforcement, and protectorates of, um, real countries.
It is worth noting that while the US ranks #49, the European Union is #41 on this list. The UK is #36, and the differences in actual years is less than one.
But by asking this question, Mr. Mak seeks to perpetuate a myth that health care and life expectancy are inexorably linked, and he wishes we would just blindly agree with his pathetic assumption. They are not. Factors such as crime, traffic and work related fatalities, diet, as well as record keeping methods are all significant factors that have nothing to do with the quality of a nations health care system.
One of the largest factors that has the USA lower in the list is actually because of our better ability and commitment to support premature babies. Many more premature babies are born in the USA and because of our technology there are better chances for survivability at ever earlier gestation stages. Other countries don’t even TRY to save these infants and do not count them as “live births”. While many of these premature babies survive, still many of these births end fatally. These preemies who don’t survive are recorded as deaths here. When an infant dies at age 0, this brings down the average significantly; for every death recorded at zero, one person who reaches 100 is averaged to 50. Also, the USA has higher murder rates and higher traffic and other accidental deaths as well, neither of which has any correlation to health care.
The “How many years of oil consumption from ANWR” question is extremely misleading, and Mr Maks spin is again quite evident. There is a difference between understanding how long the oil fields will last running at capacity (which is the best they can do) versus the hypothetical and outrageously impossible idea that the entire USA could run on one source of oil (that is, wildly beyond the physical capacity of the well itself, ignoring logistic problems and transportation bottlenecks, which is Mak’s hypothetical). When confronted with a question posed with such absurd assumptions, respondents will naturally answer with a more realistic interpretation. The absurd nature of the assumption is rejected by logic and the more rational interpretation is substituted. That is, any reasonable person would not see the USA somehow stopping all imports – and other domestic production as well – to pipe in oil exclusively from Amwr for two years. Since this artificial construct was not explicit in the question, naturally respondents would interpret the question to mean “How long will the reserves hold out at capacity”.
Mak asks a stupid question and gets a smart answer, but blames them for getting it “wrong”.
The question also betrays another assumption promoted by the left, and Mr Mak is obviously a victim of much of their propaganda. Using this trope is a way of avoiding the real argument, and by the way, leftists NEVER use this method on things they hold dear. This argument can be used for any new energy source as an excuse for doing nothing. IE Solar energy – if every house was fitted with solar panels it would only power the USA for three days. How’s that? If we built ten nuclear power plants they would only power the US for one month. Wind – If we had windmills from sea to shining sea it would only account for 12 hours of US electric consumption. Need I go on?
Mak also ignores the fact that the the larger argument for opening ANWR is to reduce our oil dependency from foreign and somewhat unfriendly sources. On an economic level, Mr. Mak ignores what opening up Anwr would do to the price of oil worldwide. The ANWR argument isn’t exclusively an energy argument as Mak implies here.
While having asked no questions in his survey as to where Tea Partiers get their information, Mak speculates:
“This may be because many Tea Partiers scorn traditional media outlets, instead focusing on the opinionized reporting of outlets they already agree with, such as WorldNetDaily, RedState, and Fox News. This creates an echo chamber that exaggerates the benefit of small solutions like tort reform and hyperbolizes genuine problems like the tax burden.” – Inside the Tea Party Echo Chamber
Mr Mak tries to make the case that because the people he interviewed “may be …focusing” on certain “opinionized reporting” they are getting a distorted picture of reality.
In order to be in an “echo chamber” you must get your information exclusively from one source or from one constellation of sources. Living in the modern media environment, it is nearly impossible to avoid hearing news from ABC, NBC, CBS mainstream newspapers and CNN. These are known, rightfully so, as “mainstream media”.It is nearly impossible to be unaware of the mainstream media news and opinions. Even listening to Rush Limbaugh every day, you still get 5 minutes of ABC “news” each hour. Mr Mak is trying to make the case that those who seek alternate sources aren’t aware and don’t hear mainstream views. This is false.
As a teenager I listened to what was called “underground radio”. These were FM stations that played songs by the likes of Jimi Hendix, Grateful Dead, Cream, Led Zepplin the Allman Brothers, all household names today, but they couldn’t get their music on AM radio in the late sixties through the seventies. At some point it didn’t matter because FM became the new venue for music anyway, but because I listened to these stations (almost exclusively) did that mean I was unaware of what the AM stations, the “top forty” were playing? Not at all. You heard those song everywhere.
But the reverse WAS true. Those who listened to AM radio for the most part were completely unaware of the existence of this alternate music, and certainly didn’t much appreciate it, until much later.
They scorn other media outlets for a reason. If Mr. Mak believes the New York Times, ABC, NBC, PBS and CBS without question, he is entitled, but I hope he knows they are all preaching from the same pulpit.
Mr. Mak’s assumptions drip with liberal elitism. If his persona is anything like this narrow-minded and condescending article dressed up as a survey, I can understand why he got a chilly reception from TPers:
“I was reminded many times throughout the protest of my sins as a mainstream reporter. Some protestors (sic) were outright hostile, condemning me as a member of the liberal media establishment.”
As to “hostile” Mak doesn’t cite the nature of the hostility (punches? pushing? yelling?) unless being “condemned” as a “member of the liberal media establishment” is hostile in and of itself.
The Tea Party folks got Tim Mak, and his stupid questions, exactly right.
ottovbvs // Mar 19, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Carney // Mar 19, 2010 at 12:30 pm
“Bartlett has walked away from the conservative movement and even conservative ideas, both of which he now bitterly scorns.”
…….So this makes his numbers wrong does it?…..but your usual bs response is not exactly surprising since as is well as is well known you and the teabaggers are not members of a reality based community
dragonlady // Mar 19, 2010 at 12:50 pm
“Normally I would lend weight to Bartlett’s theories, but he’s pulling up data most average Americans don’t follow to discredit the tea party.”
……..you mean their whole angry philosophy is based on facts that are false
sdspringy // Mar 19, 2010 at 1:42 pm
“Poor David, using Bartlett to pull a drive by on the Tea Party goers.”
………You three are prima facie evidence, if any was needed, of the parlous intellectual state of today’s Republican party………Give me ignorance or death!
ottovbvs // Mar 19, 2010 at 2:15 pm
4 franco 2 // Mar 19, 2010 at 2:06 pm
…..Er…..make that four.
franco 2 // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Bruce Bartlett reports on a sampled crowd from ONE tea party – basically a test on what OTHER people pay in taxes, has to spend hundreds of words writing qualifiers “Of course, it’s hard to know what any particular individual or family pays in taxes,” Yeah right, Brucey, so what’s the beef? Still he uses their answer as proof they collectively have a distorted world view.
“In short, no matter how one slices the data, the Tea Party crowd appears to believe that federal taxes are very considerably higher than they actually are, whether referring to total taxes as a share of GDP or in terms of the taxes paid by a typical family.”
OK, so they should just go home because Bruce Bartlett has just informed them that things are not as bad as they seemed. Nothing to worry about here folks, move along. That money coming out of your paycheck – it’s not federal taxes, maybe you have that confused with city, state or Social Security taxes, but you got some survey answer wrong so I’ve decided that you are misinformed about everything.
“…tea parties just represent unfocused anger at current economic conditions. Those who feel this way have latched on to the Tea Party movement not because they really believe that their taxes are too high, that taxes are rising or that taxes are at the root of our economic problem.”
Oh I see, Bruce. They are misinformed. Bartlett takes a long circuitous route from and aggregated group’s not (collectively) getting some ill defined taxpayers dollar amount wrong as a means to declare that they don’t “really believe their taxes are too high”.
Later, he conflates these folks’ not knowing how much people in other brackets pay, to not knowing what they themselves pay!
“Whatever the future of the Tea Party movement in American politics, it’s a bad idea for so many participants to operate on the basis of false notions about the burden of federal taxation. It only takes a little bit of time to look at one’s tax return to see what one is actually paying the Treasury..”
This is a preposterous misrepresentation of an already flawed question and sampling. There was no question matching respondents to their prospective tax brackets – the great majority of whom probably lie in the upper brackets from a family income of $50,000 (which today is barely above poverty for a family income) So for Bartlett to conclude from this that they don’t know how much they pay in taxes is wrong.
“In this sense, the tea parties are simply the latest manifestation of populism, which has arisen periodically throughout American history.”
This is a transparent technique to smear and disparage tea partiers with a narrow definition that suits Bartlett. Bartlett speaks the conceit of the sophomore political science student with easy labels and historical citations, recalling some arcane issue and trying to attach it by way of sheer chutzpah to modern populists. There is an obvious subtext however: Bartlett to populists IE people. Just let us elites run things. Populism doesn’t do anything, forget voting, and for God’s sake don’t complain about how much taxes you are paying, you don’t even know yourselves.
I can’t believe Forbes published this crap.
franco 2 // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:09 pm
otto keep making baseless assertions, you reveal yourself daily as an empty shallow drone of the left.
Carney // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:16 pm
otto, my point, which your quote-mining snipped out, was that Bartlett should no longer be seen as a reliable source of analysis and commentary by conservatives. Frum’s uncritical and unqualified use of him carries an implicit endorsement of Bartlett’s credentials. It’s as if Frum is saying, “here’s a guy who, like you, agrees that spending cuts and tax cuts are central to sound economic policy – he shares your values and priorities, therefore give what he has to say more weight than you otherwise might because you can trust his motivations.” But that implicit endorsement is based on a false premise.
franco 2 // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Imagine Frum Forum interns attending an anti-war rally and asking 20% of the Code Pink crowd questions relating to their knowledge of the wars they are protesting. How many troops are in Afghanistan right now? Are the troop levels rising or falling? The resulting average would be wrong, just by the nature of the method. Wouldn’t it ? Some people are bound to skew the average by wrong answers. Wouldn’t it be fairly safe to assume that they would on the whole believe there are more troops in Afghanistan than there actually are?
OK now would this mean that these people have no right to protest, or for that matter are so collectively ill-informed as to be dismissed on that basis?
This is the level they have sunken to. It’s really quite silly.
ottovbvs // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:37 pm
…..Bartlett draws some conclusions from what statistically was actually a mega sample (sorry Franco) that demonstrate the entire tea party enterprise is based on false assumptions…… and the reactions of those leading members of the conservative intelligentsia Franco, Carney and co are:
Shoot the messenger(bitter, dumb, should be fired from Forbes etc)
Data was wrong because attendees didn’t represent tea party opinions (some dog owners were present)
Off topic ramblings about American populism
Jimi Hendrix music is great (perhaps this explains the brain rot)
Frum is a friend of Bartlett’s
No one knows this stuff anyway
Anyone who points out the irrationality of the above is a drone
……..Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see my point proved by these geniuses
ottovbvs // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:42 pm
10 franco 2 // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:22 pm
“OK now would this mean that these people have no right to protest, or for that matter are so collectively ill-informed as to be dismissed on that basis?”
……..Franco logic at it’s most pure…….just because there’s no such thing as withcraft, that’s no reason why you can’t burn witches…..you split my sides Franco
jdipeso // Mar 19, 2010 at 8:15 pm
How much of a difference would drilling ANWR make in lowering energy prices or U.S. dependence on foreign oil? Not a hell of a lot, according to a 2008 that DOE carried out at Ted Stevens’ request.
According to the analysis’ optimistic scenario, ANWR production would lower oil prices by $1.44 per barrel by 2027 and would boost U.S. output by some 1.5 million barrels per day, about 1.7 percent of current daily oil production worldwide. Foreign oil dependence would drop to 46 percent in the mid 2020s, but then start rising again as the field depletes.
Despite persistent beliefs to the contrary, ANWR is not a magic wand that would appreciably lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil or reduce U.S. vulnerability to price shock. There likely isn’t enough oil up there to sway the global oil market appreciably, plus it’s a high-cost production zone. In addition, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline has a maximum throughput capacity of 2.1 million barrels per day. While the pipeline’s capacity conceivably could be expanded, it’s important to remember that the pipeline is operated for profit, not for maximizing domestic oil production.
Sean Linnane // Mar 19, 2010 at 10:25 pm
At the time of this writing, there is no political party I am aware of called the “Tea Party”. The term refers to the Boston Tea Party, of course; an act of defiance against a distant tyrannical government. The Tea Party is the latest manifestation of a grassroots kneejerk reaction against the Liberal agenda to change American society based on the revolutionary standards of Academia.
The same people who represent the resplendent Conservative movement in this country, championed by Ronald Reagan. In other words; the same people who have been listening to Rush Limbaugh for the past twenty years.
franco 2 // Mar 20, 2010 at 1:15 am
ottovbvs // Mar 19, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Laugh all you like. You fundamentally misunderstand me. There is no such thing (as you understand it anyway) as witchcraft, therefore burning ‘witches” is wrong. The modern ‘witch is best described as a “republican”. (BTW I’m not one myself)
franco 2 // Mar 20, 2010 at 1:36 am
But Tea Partiers have a “distorted world view”, according to Frummers. They think the economy is TANKING. They think TAXES are too high! They are so WAAAY off base! They are forcasting a future that doesn’t exist, not to me… Silly I know, Bruce . We really should be happy to pay out all this money this time to provide for those who are less fortunate… so much less fortunate since i am now able to work not just for myself but for someone less fortunate =it gives me a double bonus.
They believe there is too much corruption in government. too much spending…… Stupid Populists! You know that will never get you anywhere!.
In conclusion,:Tea Partiers failed my stupid test and therefore they have no standing to say our system is corrupt. We are not corrupt. We are public servants…. we lobby, legislate and spin it’s all within the rules… what, you don’t believe me????
Sean Linnane // Mar 20, 2010 at 8:27 am
Try this as a thought experiment:
In this posting, and in the original Bruce Bartlett editorial that it references –
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
- everywhere you see the words ‘Tea Party’ , replace them with ‘Republicans’.
Because while there is no “Tea Party” per se – BUT:
While it is true that not all Republicans are Tea Partiers; ALL of the Tea Partiers are Republicans.
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ottovbvs // Mar 21, 2010 at 2:00 pm
“While it is true that not all Republicans are Tea Partiers; ALL of the Tea Partiers are Republicans.”
……Actually neither of these statements is true