Twitter roundup

From my Twitter feed (7/19-7/29) Brendan Nyhan Jul 29, 2011 at 12:04 PM
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	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @jbouie: http://t.co/szT1gA7 Status quo bias is an incredibly powerful thing.
	The Four Kinds Of Pro-Electoral College Arguments | The New Republic Rick Hertzberg continues his thankless, vital lonely job of carefully refuting every argument raised against the National Popular Vote plan. For instance, one op-ed asserts: Hertzberg replies, w...
	Jul 29, 2011 at 10:55 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan MT @conor64: Rush Limbaugh: Tax cuts are "the only proven way to raise revenue" http://t.co/QCT07f5
	How Rush Limbaugh Keeps His Listeners in Fantasy Land Conor Friedersdorf - Conor Friedersdorf is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about politics and national affairs. He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of...
	Jul 28, 2011 at 11:41 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Or: Gingrich weaves "campaign" into book, movie tour RT @kendramarr: Gingrich weaves book, movie tour into campaign - http://t.co/0zmDU2v
	Gingrich weaves book, movie tour into campaign - Kendra Marr In between stops at a Rotary Club meeting and an anti-tax town hall on the second day of his latest campaign swing through Georgia on Thursday, Newt Gingrich will head over to the Roswell Street...
	Jul 28, 2011 at 5:19 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan .@hiddenbrain on @slate: "Don't blame Congress for not passing laws. It's designed that way." http://j.mp/oyWvFw
	Congressional grades: Congress shouldn't be graded on passing laws. Stroll around Washington, D.C., this summer, and you will see hordes of tourists thronging the national Mall. Parents ask their kids, "What's the role of Congress?" And the teenagers respond, "T...
	Jul 28, 2011 at 4:30 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan .@smotus critiques ex-Rep. Mickey Edwards's Atlantic article - reforms "would likely have little effect on partisanship" http://j.mp/mQbNVY
	Enik Rising: Turning "Republicans and Democrats into Americans" Brendan Nyhan flagged this recent article by former Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK) in the Atlantic . The article's title, "How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans," is really obnoxious,...
	Jul 28, 2011 at 2:50 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @kwcollins: .@jonahlehrer on political trust, fMRI studies, and congressional logrolling: http://t.co/UitJgjF
	» The Collapse of Political Trust American politics makes me sad. One can't help but imagine the history books of the future, highlighting this moment as an example of why the decline began, how a country this rich and free deve...
	Jul 28, 2011 at 2:38 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Great news RT @mattyglesias: Coming soon(ish) from Simon & Schuster, my new ebook THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH: http://t.co/2oqXbHs
	ANNOUNCEMENT: The Rent Is Too Damn High! I’m excited to announce that last week I signed papers on a deal to publish a relatively short relatively cheap e-book with Simon & Schuster. The working title is THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH and t...
	Jul 27, 2011 at 5:15 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan GOP whip: "never have debt ceiling increase again w/o serious efforts to deal with long-term spending" http://j.mp/pNs7Ci (3:59 in clip)
	Rep. Cole, Once Boehner's Rival, Backs House Plan : NPR Steve Inskeep talks with Republican Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a one-time rival of House Speaker John Boehner who now backs Boehner's debt ceiling proposal. Copyright © 2011 National Publ...
	Jul 27, 2011 at 4:29 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan I've been ranting about this for years RT @Slate: Thomas the Tank Engine: weirdly nostalgic for British imperialism? http://t.co/sqwXTXL
	Thomas the Tank Engine: The popular children's show is sadly nostalgic for British imperialism. Sign up for Slate's daily newsletter. There is something rotten on the Island of Sodor, home to Thomas the Tank Engine. Viewers won't find guns, violence, or anything even approaching a double-e...
	Jul 27, 2011 at 3:49 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Reminder: Absent catastrophic default, the state of the economy will trump overhyped debt ceiling positioning http://bit.ly/qNNfPi
	Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs — The Monkey Cage That's true, but not for the reasons Reich may think. Yes, some Democratic and Republican politicians, including Obama, appear to agree that government spending should decrease. But that's not b...
	Jul 27, 2011 at 2:44 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @JustinWolfers: "The bottom 50 percent of households, based on pretax income, make less combined than the top 1 percent." http://t.co/Gf7o5gs
	Lessons From the U.S. Economy's Malaise - NYTimes.com Nuances and caveats help to keep the nation from solving some straightforward questions about the economy.
	Jul 27, 2011 at 1:22 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Talking 'Green' Can Help Candidates Win Votes http://j.mp/n99AZo Paper: http://j.mp/qieJE2 (PDF)
	Climate & Politics - Woods Institute Political candidates get more votes by taking a "green" position on climate change - acknowledging that global warming is occurring, recognizing that human activities are at least partially to b...
	http://woods.stanford.edu/docs /surveys/Stanford_Climate_Poli tics2011.pdf
	Jul 26, 2011 at 7:41 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @mattyglesias: How the media works: "Obama says Boehner wouldn't agree! Boehner says the opposite! Who's right? We don't care!" http://ygl.as/mTOye3
	Republican Debunks Myth Of $400 Billion Tax Demand | The New Republic When John Boehner walked away from a Grand Bargain for the second time last weekend, he claimed he did so because the White House 'demanded" more revenue: Republicans have hammered this point ho...
	Jul 26, 2011 at 5:24 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan After weeks of getting rolled by the GOP, is it time for Obama to put up the Rahm-Signal? http://j.mp/nSjbGM #couldntresist
	http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/f iles/batsignal.jpg
	Jul 26, 2011 at 5:02 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Seriously, negotiating failures are probably #2 on list of mistakes besides handling of Fed; see also @davidfrum's list http://t.co/tHEQATF
	Obama's 5 big mistakes - CNN The indictment has five headings: 1. Obama has ceased to lead on the economy. The management guru Stephen Covey famously said: "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." Economic...
	Jul 26, 2011 at 5:04 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan New poll: 18% still think Obama is Muslim, 40% DK http://j.mp/oJ0ZSO Also, only 40% know Romney is Mormon - likely to hurt him as # grows
	Most Don't Know Romney's Religion Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Gover...
	Jul 26, 2011 at 4:09 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan .@mattyglesias: "the left remains morbidly obsessed with the desire to hear different presidential speeches" http://j.mp/pWVfe2 (ht @jbouie)
	There’s Still More To Life Than The President Via Nicholas Beaudrot, Digby laments that progressives didn’t extract more cheap talk from Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton: It will be unlikely that we’ll ever have the kind of leverage we had i...
	Jul 26, 2011 at 4:04 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan MT @joeura: My article of the behavior effects of budget deficits in the Boston Globe http://t.co/kup421X The paper here http://t.co/n2Fc732
	Uncommon Knowledge Kross, E. & Grossmann, I., "Boosting Wisdom: Distance from the Self Enhances Wise Reasoning, Attitudes, and Behavior," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (forthcoming). Lower taxes, big...
	"Deficits and Demand for Government" by Joseph Daniel Ura and Erica M. Socker The notion of “starving the beast” has been an important justification for fiscal programs emphasizing revenue reductions since the mid-1970s. While the idea of restraining government spending b...
	Jul 26, 2011 at 3:16 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan More from WP/NYT on Operation Fast & Furious http://j.mp/oqhWQR http://j.mp/pqtHvh Emerging scandal struggling for O2 during #debtpocalypse
	Guns From Operation Fast and Furious Tied to Mexican Crimes - NYTimes.com New details about a gun-trafficking sting investigation will be offered in a report by Congressional investigators.
	Operation Fast and Furious: A gunrunning sting gone wrong - The Washington Post Phoenix - They came from all over the country, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, brought here in a bold new effort to shut down the flow of U.S. guns to Mexica...
	Jul 26, 2011 at 11:28 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Obama gambit likely to fail: Reagan concluded his TV speeches failed to "apply the kind of pressure I needed on Congress" http://j.mp/jyZy9n
	Obama should beware Reagan myths - Brendan Nyhan With all of the coverage of President Obama's staffing changes, it's worth noting that he's also been reading and soliciting outside advice as he prepares for the second half of his term. In par...
	Jul 26, 2011 at 1:37 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @daveweigel: Economy was growing! RT @philipaklein: Gallup: Obama's ratings lower than Clinton's were during 1995 budget dispute http://bit.ly/oQJFMN
	Obama's Weekly Job Approval Ties Term Low of 43% President Barack Obama averaged a 43% job approval rating for the week of July 18-24, tied for the lowest weekly average of his administration. Obama's rating at this point is lower than Preside...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 11:58 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Tom Friedman’s ‘Radical’ Wrongness by @gregamarx http://j.mp/oJ98jG
	Tom Friedman’s ‘Radical’ Wrongness Critics debunk-again-the NYT columnist's ‘radical center' dream Over the weekend, The New York Times op-ed page published one of Tom Friedman's periodic columns about the need for a uprising of ...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 8:36 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @GrahamDavidA: RT @weareyourfek: What do Lloyd Blankfein, 50 Cent, and Lady Gaga have in common? Infographics to the rescue! http://t.co/atJEWv5
	What Do Lloyd Blankfein, 50 Cent, and Lady Gaga Have In Common? | The New York Observer If you haven't already read it, this week's New York Magazine profile of "misunderstood creature" and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein by Jessica Pressler is many things, but most prominently: ...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 7:09 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan New study: Exposing voters to flag during vote choice q causes persistent GOP shift. Summary: http://j.mp/n0J2RC Article: http://j.mp/mVsfb8
	The Politics of the Stars and Stripes Exposing American voters to an image of the American flag while asking whom they plan to vote for shifts them toward the Republican Party, a new study finds-and effects of that exposure are stil...
	A Single Exposure to the American Flag Shifts Support Toward Republicanism up to 8 Months Later There is scant evidence that incidental cues in the environment significantly alter people's political judgments and behavior in a durable way. We report that a brief exposure to the American fl...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 4:43 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Bonica on CFR: matching funds only for constituent donors, bonus for 1st-time givers, smaller subsidies for big contribs. http://j.mp/mTSW52
	Boston Review — Adam Bonica: Small Donors and Polarization This article is part of Leadership, Free to Lead, a forum on campaign-finance reform. Governor Roemer shares the growing optimism among reformers that campaign-finance laws designed to empower s...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 1:54 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Attempts to be more authentic always seem inauthentic RT @mattyglesias TPaw to implement doomed "be himself" strategy http://t.co/bjuqAvR
	Tim Pawlenty 'Throwing Off' Scripted Campaign And Running Hard To Catch Up In Iowa PERRY, IOWA – Tim Pawlenty stepped off his rented RV in this former railroad town, took one look at the handful of aides and reporters waiting for him to walk into an office building, drew him...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 1:48 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @smotus: Seriously, MoJo, Bachmann's responsible for teen suicides in her district? http://t.co/Bz594US
	The Teen Suicide Epidemic in Michele Bachmann's District Mon Jul. 25, 2011 3:00 AM PDT The first was TJ. Then came Samantha, Aaron, Nick, and Kevin. Over the past two years, a total of nine teenagers have committed suicide in a Minnesota school distri...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 1:47 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan NYT infographic on policy changes that have added to the deficit since FY2002 - correspondence to DC debate very low http://j.mp/p2gVAS
	Policy Changes Under Two Presidents - NYTimes.com
	Jul 25, 2011 at 1:08 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Unbelievable chutzpah from GOP aide: *Obama* setting up "no-win situation... he gets...blank check or America defaults" http://j.mp/pAuP7G
	Top Dem.: 'If Boehner would just lead his caucus, this would have been over' - Top GOP aide: 'Republicans will not give him a $2.4 trillion blank check he can use throughout his campaign' - POLITICO Playbook MARKETS CALM SO FAR-- AP/London: "Global stocks started the week on a flat note as investors waited to see if U.S. political leaders can reach a deal to raise Washington's debt limit and avoid a...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 12:47 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @MarkThoma: Economists are terrible forecasters - why trust them anyway? http://t.co/93WrOln
	News N Economics: Economists are terrible forecasters - why trust them anyway? The herd that is 'consensus' clings to this hope that GDP will bounce back smartly in Q3 and Q4, where all the while some pretty miserable data and financial conditions are staring us in the fac...
	Jul 25, 2011 at 11:28 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @daveweigel: #FuckYouWashington, Super Congress, and the inanity of AmericansElect: http://slate.me/qk1AWj
	#F**kYouWashington On Saturday night, aided by "a nice pinot noir," the tech and business-of-news writer Jeff Jarvis started to tweet. "Hey, Washington assholes," he wrote, "it's our country, our economy, our mone...
	Jul 24, 2011 at 3:21 PM
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Comments

[David in Cal]

The New York Times deserves a Darell Huff Award for skill in lying with statistics. During Bush's years as President, the Federal deficit averaged around $300 billion a year. That's an ugly record for which the Times justifiably criticized him. During Obama's years as President, the deficit has average around $1,500 billion -- 4 or 5 times as big. One might think that Obama deserves much more criticism, but the Times found a way to blame Obama's deficits on Bush.

One minor trick was to include 2009 in the Bush record, even though Obama was President for most of fiscal year 2009. (fiscal year 2009 runs from Sept. 30, 2008 to Oct. 1, 2009). But, this is relatively minor. Arguably, it may even be justifiable, since a new President is limited in what he can do. OTOH plenty of liberals (including Brendan Nyhan) blamed Bush for economic results that took place before his policies had time to affect the economy.

The Times' main trick was to come up with a new measurement of "change in costs". This measurement is based on the unstated assumption that President Obama was powerless of change anything President Bush did.

E.g., the Times assigned the cost of the Bush tax cuts to Bush. That's appropriate. However, the Times didn't assign to Obama the cost of maintaining tax rates at Bush's level. It's as if the ghost of Bush magically forced Obama to sign the bill authorizing Bush's tax rates.

In reality, every dollar of spending and every dollar of revenues was capable of being revised by Obama. This was particularly true during his first two years, when the Dems had huge Congressional majorities.

The Times measurement of "change" assigned no cost to Obama for continuing the Iraq War, even though he pledged to end that war and didn't do so. Nor did they charge Obama for the cost of his surge in Afghanistan. The Times didn't even charge Obama for the costs of the war in Libya, even though that war was stared unilaterally by Obama. The Times charged Bush for the war in Libya by lumping it into the category of "defense."

[David in Cal]

Jonathan Chait writes:

Rick Hertzberg continues his thankless, vital lonely job of carefully refuting every argument raised against the National Popular Vote plan.

However, the link doesn't quite show that. It merely shows Hertzberg refuting a couple of weak arguments against the NPV Plan. Chait seems to imply that Hertzberg has refuted many other anti-NPV arguments in other articles, but Chait didn't link to those refutations.

IMHO Republcans like the Electoral Collge because it's more apt to help them. Dems dislike it because it's more apt to hurt them. I can see a number of theoretical advantages to electing the candidate with the most votes. However, I think there are some valid arguments against the NPV, e.g.

1. When one party dominates a state, they may be able to manipulate the voting or the vote count. Under the current system, there's no advantage to cheating; the dominant party will get that state's electoral votes. Under an NPV plan, the dominant party in the state has an incentive to cheat and show the maximum number of reported votes for their party's Presidential candidate.

2. The NPV Plan isn't Constitutionally binding. It's enacted legislatively, so it can be changed legislatively. Consider this hypothetical example:

Sarah Palin wins a majority of the national popular vote in 2012. Having enacted the NPV law, California must give Palin all its electoral votes, even though Obama got more votes than Palin in California. However, suppose the electoral vote total is such that if California were to repeal its NPV law and give its electoral votes to Obama, Obama would be re-elected. Would Jerry Brown and the California legislature repeal the NPV in order to give Obama a victory and save the country from the disaster of a Palin Presidency? I think they would if they could.

(A somewhat more probable version of this hypothetical would be that California along with several other Dem states could move the victory from Palin to Obama by jointly repealing the NPV.)

If someone can point me to a refutation of these two arguments by Hertzberg or by someone else, I'd be grateful.

[David in Cal]

Megan McArdle, senior editor for the Atlantic who writes about business and economics, agrees with me that the New York Times chart comparing Bush's vs. Obama's contribution to the deficit is partisan and unhelpful.

the graph at top was made by someone who seems very interested indeed in allocating as much blame as possible to Republicans--indeed, more interested in that than anything else. So it does not do a very good job of illustrating the relative size of choices--the Bush figures are eight year figures, the Obama figures three-year figures. And it's entirely retrospective. Aside from the massaging I discussed above, the focus on the past makes it a very bad guide to the relative magnitude of the future choices we need to make. Some of these items (tax cuts, entitlements) will grow, and some of them (military spending, some discretionary items) won't. All this graph is good for is apportioning blame for the debt we've already incurred, and as I say, it's rather questionable whether it's even good for that.

[David in Cal]

If ignorance were corn flakes, David Leonhardt would be General Mills (paraphrasing Cecil Adams.) Look at his linked column:

We are too often occupied with distractions, rather than trying to answer a simple question: What works? What economic policies have succeeded before and are most likely to lead to the best life for the largest number of people?

If he really supported economic policies that have succeeded before, he'd be advocating tax rate cuts and opposing stimulus. After all, there were 3 major tax rate cuts in the 20th century and one more in the 21st. All four were followed by booming economies. OTOH stimulus by FDR, Bush, and Obama all were followed by continued bad economies.

When it comes to economics, we know that a market economy with a significant government role is the only proven model of success.

Leonard gives some examples of economies that improved when the government role was reduced, but no examples showing that a significant government role is necessary.

In fact, the US economy boomed for 150 years with little government role. Hong Kong boomed with little government role.

We also know that ever-rising levels of education are crucial to a country’s success.

Most of the studies cited by Leonhardt make the mistake of attributing the difference in earnings between college grads and non-grads to the value of college. In fact, those two groups are inherently different. Those who graduate from college tend to be smarter, more disciplined, and more ambitious. They would earn more money with or without college. E.g., despite his failure to graduate from college, Bill Gates has earned somewhat more money than Brendan Nyhan.

Leonard falls for the economic fallacy of composition. Just because something is true for an individual unit, it does not mean that it is true for the aggregate. Nowadays, many a job requires a college degree even though college is useless for that job. An individual may earn more money by going to collegem when the degree is required for the job he wants. But, if college doesn't help him do the job better, then his college education doesn't improve the aggregate economy.

The only way out of this problem involves some combination of tax increases and cuts to Medicare, Social Security and the military. Anyone who won’t get specific about which ones they favor is not a fiscal conservative.

The first sentence is mostly true. We also should be cutting programs other than the three he mentions, like high speed trains to nowhere and payments to millionaire farmers.

The second sentence is completely unsupported. Leonhardt evidently derived it via the POOMA method.

It's easy to guess where it came from. Leonhardt admitted that spending must be cut. That would imply that fiscal conservatives are right to demand spending cuts. Can't have that! So, he made up a new condition that those who recognize the need to cut spending are required to lay out where the cuts should be made. Of course, all politicians are leery of identifying areas to cut spending, since that would offend voting blocs. So, Leonhardt's made-up principle allows him to dsicredit fiscally conservative politicians.