In today's Austin American-Statesman there is an opinion article entitled "China bashers are passing the buck," by someone whose last name is apparently Hassett and who is director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
I don't know if I agree with the opinions he expresses in the article, and that is not the point of this comment. He may be exactly right in his opinions. The point of this comment is that one of the reasons I can't tell if I agree with him or not, one of the reasons I am not persuaded by his arguments, is that one of the "facts" he states is not true. Because of that, I have to wonder if any of the other "facts" he states are true.
He says, "[W]e [the United States] have ... the second-highest coproate tax rates on earth."
There are lots of facts he asserts which I am too ignorant to even wonder about, but I knew enough to wonder about that. More than wonder, I thought, "That surely isn't true." So, I took a few minutes on the internet to check it out. It turns out, as I suspected, that it isn't true.
The corporate tax rates in the United States range from 15% to 39%. If you look at the highest tax rate - 39% - there are at least six other countries which have higher top corporate tax rates than the United States.
Many countries, however, have fixed corporate tax rates, not a range. If you compare the fixed tax rate of those countries to the average of our range, there are many, many countries with higher corporate tax rates than ours. So many I didn't even bother to count.
Of the countries who do have ranges, like we do, if you compare the low end of our range to the low end of their range, there are at least eight other countries which have higher bottom corporate tax rates than the United States and several others who have the same bottom corporate tax rates as the United States.
My point is not to argue that our U.S. corporate tax rate is either good or bad, set correctly or incorrectly. My point is to argue that, no matter how you slice it, the corporate tax rates in the United States are not the second highest in the world. That statement is simply ... false.
We have to stop telling ourselves things that are not true. By ourselves, I mean both our fellow citizens and, literally, ourselves. The more we tell ourselves something that is not true, the more we begin to believe that it is true. This has to stop, or we're doomed.
We cannot possibly ever agree on solutions or even on the nature of the problem if we are all choosing to believe different things, some of which are just not true. Even things which are obviously not true.
This is particularly galling in the case of this article by Mr. (or Mrs. or Miss, I can't tell which) Hassett because it is published in the Austin American-Statesman, which has a regular feature in which they research statements made by politicians and rank them on whether they are truthful or not. The fact that they would publish something on their opinion page with a statement which five minutes on the internet would show was untrue is, at the risk of being too dramatic, appalling. Utterly appalling!
Stop it! Please!
Just tell the truth!
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Please give your sources for the info you use.
ReplyDeleteThe specific source I used was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world, but a Google search using the terms "corporate tax rates global" produces many sources.
ReplyDeleteYou may want to check out the graph at the top of the wiki article you cite. Looks like the number two is the U.S. Now, I am really (really in the most polite sense of the word) not trying to be in your face. But, to quote someone, "just tell the truth." Really.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I will anonymously eat crow if I just put my foot in my mouth.
Okay, I hope you enjoy crow.
ReplyDeleteThe article referred to the U.S. corporate tax "rate" being the second highest in the world.
The second chart compares actual rates. The first chart, to which you refer (which does show the U.S. to be second highest), is not a chart of rates. It is a chart of rates as a "percentage of income." It means that our rates are the second highest "as a percentage of income," not that the rates are actually the second highest.
Also, in the notes for that chart (which you see when you click on the chart and enlarge it) this appears: "'Where a progressive (as opposed to flat) rate structure applies, the top marginal rate is shown.' It is showing the top rate for corporate taxes, not a mean rate."
The U.S. has a progressive corporate rate structure, not a flat one.
I'm not sure I understand that note, but if I do, it means that, even in concluding we have the second highest rates "as a percentage of income," the assumption is being made that all corporate taxes are being paid at the highest marginal tax rate (39%), which, while they honestly admit this assumption, does not represent reality. Not all corporate taxes in the U.S. are paid at the highest marginal rate. So, even as a percentage of income, the chart to which you refer is overestimating the amount of corporate taxes paid in the U.S. It may also be over or underestimating other countries, but we know it is not an accurate representation for the U.S.
Not sure how crow tastes yet.
ReplyDeleteWas once told by a statistician that all statistics lie and all statisticians are liars.
Could be. But, whether that's true or not, Hassett made a statement of "fact" which isn't true. The chart you pointed out may have been the one he wanted his readers to look at, but it isn't the chart that has anything to do with the "fact" he stated. The one that does have something to do with his "fact" shows that his statement is simply not true.
ReplyDeleteMy point was and is that you can make statistics say or mean anything. An example would be the current administration trumpeting the reduction in job losses earlier this year. This was true on the surface. However, a more careful look at the numbers showed that the reason for the reduction was the hiring of census workers by the government.
ReplyDeleteOr another administration favorite is perhaps talking about all of the jobs saved. This is a made up statistic of unquantifiable information.
Personally, I think the Obama administration's lies are breathtaking. You might forward your blog to them.
I understand. But, that wasn't my point. My point was very simple: The writer of the article asserted something as a fact which was easily determined to be just plain wrong. Whether this fact was a statistic or merely a fact, it was still a relatively simple assertion which was clearly incorrect. Based on that incorrect fact, he reached some conclusions. I don't know if the conclusions were right or wrong, because at least one of the facts he used to reach the conclusions was just plain wrong.
ReplyDeleteWe have to stop doing that. We cannot hope to agree on conclusions if we're going to just make up fact on which they are based and tell them to ourselves either because we're just careless or, more sinisterly, because we think people won't check the facts.
Now, to your point about thinking the Obama administration's lies are breathtaking. Could be. But, "personally, I think" the Republicans' lies about the Obama administration are sucker punches to the solar plexus that knock the breath right out of me. More importantly, they knock the breath right out of any attempt at reasoned discussion. So, pick your poison, my friend. Pick your poison.
I just came across another example of a liberal's stories with statistics. Check out the following website: http://keithhennessey.com/2010/10/21/other-side/
ReplyDeleteNow I am no economist, but the back side of the whiteboard seems a lot more honest and plausible. Where is the real truth?
To the most recent anonymous poster: If you think you are in a debate about whether conservatives or liberals are more honest, you are not. If you read my posts, I think you will see that I am critical of anyone who plays fast and loose with the facts, regardless of his or her political persuasion.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you're trying to prove that liberals sometimes lie, okay, great, you're a terrific debater. You win! Liberals sometimes lie. I don't even have to look at the website you referenced to bow to your point. I don't even care what the website says! You win!
That, of course, has nothing to do with the point I was making, and any attempt to argue that it does is mere obfuscation. Any attempt to turn this into a discussion of statistics or economics or anything else is merely avoicing the point I was making. That the fact that caught my attention was arguably statistical or that it had something to do with economics is completely peripheral. I don't even know whether the writer thinks he is conservative or liberal and don't care.
My point was ... and still is ... the writer wrote something that was plainly and obviously untrue and we need to tell each other (and ourselves) the truth. Whether we think we are liberal or conservative or simply don't think at all, we have to stop lying to ourselves about the facts.
Not only do we need to stop doing it ourselves, but we need to stop letting others get away with it.
So, please feel completely free to hold both liberals and conservatives to the same high standard for honesty. I want you to do that, as long as you apply the same standard to both.
Don't become the subject of one of my hypocrisy alerts.
Without rereading your previous blogs, it seems that the only non-truths you have been mentioning have been by conservatives. That is my distinct impression. I agree that both sides can and do fib. You really should check out the web site though. Next topic.....
ReplyDeleteThen I encourage you to reread my previous articles, because it seems you've drawn conclusions about what I've been "mentioning" without paying a lot of attention to what I've really been mentioning.
ReplyDeleteI actually started my campaign to tell the truth with the article "Arizona's New Immigration Law" on May 14, where I pointed out that the critics of Arizona's law (liberals) were saying that the law did things that it simply did not do.
I then carried on that campaign with the articles "This Is What I'm Talking About" on May 21 and "They Did It Again" on May 27, both referring to things that critics of the law were saying that weren't true.
Those were the first three articles on the theme of telling the truth, all tagging liberals for not telling the truth.
I also wrote the article "Rewriting History," wherein I "mention" that something the writer of an opinion piece said about how we were after 9/11 was simply not true. I stated clearly in that article that I didn't know who wrote that article. Maybe you do, but I doubt it. So, he or she could have been liberal or conservative. I didn't care. The writer wasn't telling the truth, and I tagged him or her for it.
Then, I wrote "The 'Enthusiasm Gap,'" about the multiple promises that President Obama made that he has not kept. While not literally about not telling the truth, surely you must have noticed that most people think President Obama tends toward the liberal side of the spectrum and I tagged him pretty hard.
Finally, I wrote this article. Once again, I have no idea whether the writer of the article "China bashers are passing the buck" is liberal or conservative, and I don't care. Apparently, you seem to assume the writer was conservative, but I have to ask, why does that matter to you? The point is, it is one more example of when we don't tell each other the truth. Liberal or conservative. Doesn't matter.
So, I am slightly offended that you think the only "non-truths" I have been mentioning have been by conservatives. It isn't true. One more thing that isn't true. So you clearly haven't been paying attention, or you actively want to distort my views.
Please, if you're going to comment on what you think I've been doing, pay attention. At the very least, you will sound more informed.