Clearly upset that Politifact ruled false his recent statement in which he denied that there have been tax cuts for the rich in Rhode Island, Mattiello pointed out that when he speaks to his “well-to-do” neighbors, they “don’t see any tax relief.” Then in a gesture more suited to Imperial Rome than to Democratic Rhode Island, Mattiello declared, “That discussion has to stop.”

Of course, the discussion isn’t stopping.

Mattiello made no secret about his economic priorities: rich people. The real question is why any business interest in Rhode Island bothers to pay lobbyists any more, given that Mattiello has basically said that businesses will get everything they want, from lower taxes to fewer regulations. Says the speaker, “We have to concentrate on the things that are important… Let the business community know that they’re important to us, know that we are going to do the types of things they need to have done.”

No longer will people be the priority in Rhode Island. “We changed the tone,” said Mattiello, “The business community knows that they have priority, they know that they’re important…”

It follows then that people not in the business community do not have priority and are unimportant.

On HealthsourceRI, one of the most successful state run health exchanges in the country, Mattiello remains unconvinced, saying, “I’m informed that it’s not as good as we think it is… There are a lot of problems with the exchange… It should be no more expensive than it would cost us to have the federal government to do it…”

I can’t be the only one who detects a massive dose of hubris when Mattiello says, “I have not made my mind up as to whether or not we’re going to keep it in the state, give it to the federal government and so forth…”

Just in case you need a preview of what to expect as the years roll by under Mattiello’s House leadership, you can rest assured it’s going to be more of the same.  “I would support [reducing or eliminating the $500 minimum corporation income tax] and I would support reducing and eliminating other taxes also. There’s a lot of taxes we could reduce or eliminate… I’m not sure that’s it going to be my priority this year, but it’s certainly something that I’m mindful of and it’s something that we ultimately have to address.”

One has to wonder when the General Assembly will get its House in order, and find new leadership.

Monday Dec 2, 2013

It’s Monday, December 2nd … the first work day of the least productive month of the year. But don’t worry, economy … while fewer people are producing goods and services more people are consuming them. December also almost always has the highest consumer spending of the year.

And speaking of the economy…

Politifact uses some political oxygen to debunk a pretty archane untruth about the minimum wage debate … put forth into the marketplace of ideas by a Facebook meme. It was something about how many times Congress increased its own salary in relation to how many times the minimum wage was raised … nothing too germane to either the economics or the morality of minimum wage politics, but it is an interesting reminder of where information comes from these days … the answer: everywhere and anywhere.

Here are some additional minimum wage claims that Gene Emery should fact check: only a third of minimum wage workers are teenagers, and three quarters of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support raising the minimum wage. And here’s a really fun fact: had it kept pace with the earnings increases of the one percent in America, the minimum wage would be about $50,000 a year. Instead, it hasn’t even kept pace with inflation, and hasn’t been enough to escape poverty since 1982 – that’s more than 30 years of enforcing slave wages from one of the richest people in human history. More on this phenomenon from Oswald Krell on RI Future.

Dan Schiff, the CEO of the Rhode Island Foodbank, told WPRI Newsmakers this weekend that the $20 million cut to SNAP benefits for Rhode Islanders will not only hurt the poor, but it will also hurt the grocers, super markets and other small businesses where poor people spend their food stamps. One in five Rhode Islanders use food stamps, and he dispelled the conservative dog whistle that waste and fraud is an issue.

Tom Sgouros has a great post on the accounting scare tactics that come in to play when the media calculates future government expenses. In this case, Tom’s talking about the next evil Republicans and conservative Dems will be railing against: other post employment benefit costs, known Draconianly as OPEBs.

Rhode Island’s most famous – and, in my opinion, most beautiful -winter residents are back. Snowy white owls have been seen at Sachuest Point in Newport, Beavertail in Jamestown and a young one was found with a broken wing at Quonset Airport here in North Kingstown yesterday. You can see pictures of the injured owl on the Wildlife Rehabilitators of Rhode Island Facebook page.

Today is Day 2 of Karen Ziner’s amazing series in the Providence Journal about transgender teenager Andy Noel. It’s a story about bravery and individualism … and it’s a sign of the times, that the paper of record would dedicate so much ink to this topic, but also that it had to shut off the online comments on account of how outrageous they became … we still have a ways to go, but people like Andy Noel are helping us get there.

Now back to my favorite news story so far of the Christmas season: is the Pope a progressive? Justin Katz and I debated the issue on NBC 10 Wingmen last week and he follows that up with an explanation of how he and the head of his church can be at such economic odds, writing, “A progressive Franciscan isn’t exactly a contradiction in terms.”

Not at all. In fact, we have tons in common. Read Steve Ahlquist’s post about what it means to be a progressive that he published just days before the Pope wrote about what it means to be a Catholic and you will see how similar these two groups tend to think. Conversely, I’d argue that the Chicago School is sinful. Katz writes that he can’t make a coherent rebuttal to the Pope’s game-changer. That’s because there isn’t one.

Politifact wrote: “Education critic Diane Ravitch said, ‘Test scores had gone up steadily for 40 years until No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.’ There are a few problems with her statement. First, the time spans for the scores she cites are 32 and 38 years, not 40. Second, while the scores increased overall, there were a few dips. And for 17-year-olds, the overall increases were insignificant. Finally, despite her implication that the increases stopped after No Child Left Behind, scores actually rose for all age groups in 2008 and for nearly all in 2012, the next two testing periods.”

Ravitch, a blogger, wrote a lengthy response today saying that Politifact “misinterpreted what I said or misunderstood what I wrote.”

I contend in the book that test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are at a historic high point for white students, black students, Hispanic students, and Asian students. Nothing in his article disputes those facts. It seems that his goal is to defend the high-stakes testing and accountability regime created by George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, passed in 2001 and signed into law in 2002.

You can read the whole thing here.

PolitiFact is well-known nationally for its conservative bias. In Rhode Island, where PolitiFact has partnered with the right of center Providence Journal, this bias was recently on full display. Recently, they went after David Cicilline for saying on Newsmakers that the Social Security payroll tax is currently assessed on about 83 percent of income, down from a peak of “approximately 90 percent of the income generated in this country…which was sort of where it has been historically.”

This is true. Even PolitiFact admits that both numbers are correct. In order to justify a “mostly false” rating, they claim that Cicilline’s muttered qualifier, “sort of where it has been historically,” amounted to saying that 90 percent was the historical average, not the peak. That sort of unreasonable quibbling could arguably justify a “mostly true.” But there really is no defending a “mostly false” rating.

In fact, PolitiFact was guilty of some misleading of their own. The percentage of earnings taxed started at 92 when the program was implemented in 1937, dipped down to a low of 71 in 1965, and rose to a peak of 90 in 1982 and 1983. It has since declined to 83 percent. In their quest for a “mostly false,” PolitiFact neglected to mention the fact that the figure started at 92 percent, giving the impression that 90 percent was the all-time peak, instead of the closest the income percentage ever came to returning to its starting point.

The cap on social security taxes is one of the most regressive features of America’s tax system. To help address this, Obama added a 0.9 percentage point high-income surcharge on the Medicare tax and cut the Social Security tax by two points. Here’s what that looks like in chart form:

Sadly, this pro-growth, highly progressive Social Security tax cut recently expired, falling victim to austerity politics.

Good for Politifact for calling foul on Rep. Patricia Morgan’s misuse of the old talking point that welfare programs account for more than 40 percent of the state budget.

First of all, her numbers were flat our wrong. As Politifact points out, her definition of welfare programs is quite broad. It includes “such spending as Federal Emergency Management Agency payments for storm cleanups as well as the legislative grants representatives and senators give out to such groups as Little League teams in their districts.”

The actual number, argues the ProJo, is 31 percent. Still, the paper of record decides to award her a half-true.

Fair enough, given that Linda Katz, executive director of the Economic Progress Institute, agrees with the number. But, watch this video to learn what programs are actually behind that number, who is actually fitting the bill and what some of the consequences would be of cuts to these programs.

First Mike Riley was telling lies about Congressman Jim Langevin in TV commercials. Now, we’re pretty certain he’s telling lies about RI Future to other reporters. Or, it’s just another example of why  Mike “McCarthyism” Riley is totally unfit to represent Rhode Island in Congress (we’ll offer more evidence of as much a little later this morning).

Read Dee DeQuattro’s post about Riley this morning and decide which you think it is.

Riley and Langevin debate, without candidate Abel Collins, on WPRI tonight at 7. The market’s leading TV news station blundered big time in not including Collins in the debate, and exacerbated the mistake by not being forthcoming with their reasoning for doing so. Journalism should err on the side of inclusion and explanation and WPRI did neither with their responsibility to host this particular congressional debate. Such decisions deserve scrutiny and ace reporters Tim White, Ted Nesi and others who work there would be demanding nothing less if the subject wasn’t their employer.

For a man who says he possesses uncommon integrity, the ProJo Politifact team sure does catch Brendan Doherty telling a lot of lies. Today, they refute his accusation that Congressman Cicilline, when mayor of Providence, “espoused a sanctuary city.” Doherty has been poltifacted six times and half of those times he wasn’t telling the truth. He was given a half-true and a mostly true and only once was he said to be telling the full truth. This from a candidate whose campaign is based around his opponent being distrustful.

Admit it, you wish you were too high-brow to pay attention to them but Dan McGowan makes great lists. Today’s list shows which RI communities have the highest rates of unemployment and it looks a lot like lists of the communities with the worst budget situations as well as public school high-stakes testing results. What does that indicate? (Hint: it isn’t the unions fault)

Thanks to Ed Fitzpatrick for joining RI Future in calling for the town of Smithfield to change the name of a local road named after a KKK leader … it seemed like a no-brainder to us, too, and we kept waiting for the rest of the state to join the call. But evidently Rhode Islanders were too busy rallying against civil liberties and looking for frightened voters in attics to care…

The mortgage crisis in Rhode Island, in case you didn’t know, is a Gordian knot – meaning untangling the mess may prove impossible without a special solution. That solution looks like it could be loan modifications.

Is True the Vote committing a criminal conspiracy by suppressing voters rights?

Disappointed with our choices for State House seats? Just be glad you don’t live in Arkansas, where candidates garner headlines like this one: Legislative Candidate Endorses Death Penalty For Rebellious Children In Book

October 9 is a pretty significant day in the history of progressive and/or radical politics:

In 1635, Rhode Island founder Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1940, John Lennon was born.

In 1967, Che Guevara was executed in Bolivia while trying to foment revolution there.

And in 1969, the National Guard breaks up protests related to the Chicago Eight trial. They were accused of inciting violence at the 1968 DNC Convention.

We’re not reversing our assertion though. While we agree that Dan McGowan did a better job of vetting all the facts than did the ProJo’s initial piece, that has no bearing on our premise that Doherty isn’t being completely honest.

Whether or not the loan in question was repaid by the borrower, a third party, an act of god or god herself, the loan was repaid. Not in full, mind you, but to the satisfaction of the lender. If Warren Buffett decides to paid my mortgage, I don’t owe that money any more and I’ve made good on my debt. There’s no asterisk on my credit score. In other words, it’s not how a debt gets repaid that determines the borrowers standing but that it gets repaid.

But, really, that’s just a technical detail that doesn’t speak to Doherty’s honesty.

His campaign was pretty clearly trying to imply that David Cicilline’s administration had forgiven a loan awarded to a campaign supporter. Given that it’s always hard to prove a negative, the onus is on the Doherty camp to back up this seemingly unsubstantiated assertion. Until that happens, I find it to fall far short of being true. It doesn’t even meet the Stephen Colbert standard of truthiness.

Politifact was right to reexamine its ruling but not to reverse it.

So far Brendan Doherty is running his campaign against David Cicilline not all that differently from how Anthony Gemma campaigned against the incumbent congressman: make a lot of accusations and see which ones stick.

So far, not all of them have.

While the conservative Republican got a lot of media attention the day after the primary for his announcing Cicilline’s ten biggest deceptions, it turns out Doherty was the one doing the deceiving with regard to at least 20 percent of the list.  The Providence Journal Politifact team has looked into two of the ten accusations Doherty made about Cicilline and found them both to be “mostly false.”

In the first, Doherty accuses Cicilline of intentionally missing deadlines for an audit of Providence finances. Politifact says, “The facts argue otherwise. In the end, we have the former head of the Rhode Island State Police making allegations without key evidence, and ignoring evidence that points in another direction.”

In the second piece, Doherty tries to make the assertion that a former campaign worker didn’t repay a loan to the Providence Economic Development Partnership. According to Politifact, the borrower paid back 93 percent of the loan after defaulting on it. “Doherty cited the case as one of Cicilline’s “most serious deceptions.” It’s not clear that any deception was involved. And Doherty provided no such evidence. Because the statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, we rate it Mostly False.”

Brendan Doherty’s baggage is supposed to be that he is a conservative Republican who will side with other conservative Republicans in congress. But Politifact has examined his statements four times so far and he’s been less-than-spot-on in three of them. Not what you want the paper of record writing about you if you’re waging a trust campaign.

Here’s what Doherty said at his presser about the value of being honest: “You have shown yourself to be untrustworthy and therefore unqualified to represent the people of Rhode Island.”

“In this election cycle, things are already so negative, it’s hard to imagine that there’s much room for them to get more negative between now and November,” election expert Stephen Farnsworth told Gene Emery of the Projo’s Politifact team as he investigated the veracity of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s assertion that negative advertisements have increased since the Citizens United decision.

It’s true, Emery discovered. Campaign advertising has gotten more negative since the Supreme Court allowed anonymous donors to pretty much put whatever they want on TV without having to stand behind the statement.

In fact, it’s exponentially true.

In 2008, from January through April just over 9 percent of presidential campaign TV ads were negative. In 2012, during the same time period, the percentage ballooned to 70 percent. That’s a 678 percent increase, the result of which means almost three quarters of all TV commercials about the presidential campaign are beating up on the opponent!

Emery is right to point out that the increase in negative campaigning isn’t soley the result of the Citizens United decision (though he’s wrong, I think, to suggest that Whitehouse indicated that was the case).  Unlike SuperPACS candidates still have to stand behind the messages they broadcast on TV (though I’m sure Justice Scalia is salivated at the opportunity to give them the right to smear their competition anonymously) and their TV ads are getting more negative too, though they only got more negative by a paltry 489 percent.

During the first four months of the 2008 campaign, 9 percent of candidates’ TV ads were negative, just like the overall number from the other study Emery cited. This year, they jumped up to 53 percent.

Who knows … maybe we’ve all just run out of good things to say.