Sophistry - a.k.a. Conservatism

This morning I woke to find Jason Lewis again published in my local paper. Jason is a conservative chattering head/radio commentator hired by a local radio station when it decided to go to an "all conservative" format about four years ago. He previously had been a successful conservative commentator here in Minnesota who "fled" to North Carolina in the early 2000's for the promise of a higher-paying, higher profile job, but that opportunity in a warmer clime seemed to have not played out as he had hoped (it appears). Either way, Jason came back to Minnesota to begin (again) trowelling out his own brand of disinformation.

A couple of weeks ago he attempted to assert the Earth isn't warming (or at least, it's not certain) - while caging his arguments in the idea that he was actually talking about whether it was caused by humans. He (again) brought up the East Anglia memos, memos which were unflattering about global climate change doubters, and which "smoothed in" or blended one very tiny part of their study. This study measured the change in temperatures at various sites throughout the world over a series of decades, in short it measured whether the earth was warming at all not whether it was caused by man. That one bit of data was one reading which showed the Earth cooling in one site for one decade (among a couple dozen sites over several decades). That "dishonest" study blended that data with other data because trying to explain why one site among dozens showed cooling for 10 years, when EVERY OTHER SITE during that decade (the 1950's) AND ALL SITES over every decade otherwise showed warming, well frankly, it seemed irrelevant and stupid to waste time on it. It is a common practice to do so.

Or, if you are Jason Lewis and the Global Climate Change Denier Cult, it showed purposeful dishonesty and proved, in fact was the "smoking gun" that scientists were "conspiring" to manufacture the entire global climate change theory. (Talk about your Oliver Stone level consiracy theory crap!) Here's the thing, no scientist who studies global climate change believes that the Earth isn't warming. Not one - the arguments are about whether human causation can be proved/has been proved because some of the supporting study has been done ONLY in a controlled environment - gosh, what a shock, I mean it's not like it's really REALLY hard to control the entire atmosphere of the Earth... The evidence of ACTUAL warming is myriad and indisputable. There are thousands of records from hundreds of sites recording temperatures over the past 150 (or so) years. To claim the blending of one site's data for one decade during what what observably one of the warmest decades in history (when measured by core samples dating back 400,000 years) is akin to "manufacturing" data is to put on a tin-foil hat. There isn't any doubt the Earth has warmed (on average) 1.7 degrees, there isn't any doubt it has been most rapid in the past 50-60 years and there isn't any doubt it is accelerating. Yet, Lewis uses this non-fact as supposed evidence of .... what exactly, that the Earth ISN'T warming when he knows it is? It doesn't talk/speak to human causation, not in the least, yet he claims it was hiding facts which dispute human causation, when it doesn't - unless you think this ONE act, blending data - which is commonly done - shows a PATTERN of misconduct - something Lewis neither claimed and certainly didn't prove.

Put to the test (i.e. asked a direct question), most (but not all) "conservatives" will say they aren't talking about whether the Earth is warming, but rather, whether humans cause it - yet, like Lewis, who titled his article "The Earth is warming..err cooling", and argued facts which dispute the very idea of warming at all, most conservatives will take any opportunity to mock the idea of warming itself. Just like Lewis, who used the East Anglia study (and conduct) as "proof" many other conservatives do the same - arguing facts which appear to be relevant, but normally aren't. Using East Anglia as a case-study of "manufatured" data is arguing that something ISN'T happening which you know full well, is.

The dictionary (on-line) defines the word Sophistry as: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone.

No word more aptly describes the exceedingly simplistic and poorly-reasoned arguments of folks like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh or Jason Lewis (or some other folks I know). One of them recently quipped that he couldn't remember the last time the US was "half in or was it half out" of a war. Apparently he can't remember Afghanistan, where George Bush failed to commit anything like the troops required, or gosh! Iraq, where Bush and Rumsfeld sent less than half the troops requested by military commanders and something like 20% of the military police requested (the same sort of military police that might be, GOSH!, asked to secure an occupied nation and teach it's police force). Apparently he doesn't remember Somalia, where George HW Bush sent troops to seemingly help stabilize Mogadishu and stave off slaughter. Apparently not I guess.

So, imagine my disappointment this morning to read Mr. Lewis (again) in the paper, quoting statistics about how much of our federal income tax the wealthiest pay. His statistics were correct, they do pay a very large percentage, and roughly double what was paid by the same percentage of people in 1980. His article is titled, "The Rich pay the taxes, and that's a fact." In it he quotes the following table -

(2008 Data - MN Dept of Revenue)
Share of taxpayers Income taxes paid Total Taxes paid
Top 1% 24.5% 13.7%
Top 5% 43.2% 27.1%
Top 10% 56% 37.8%
Bottom 50% 4.1% 17.3%
Bottom 20% 0.% 4.6%

Before and citing this table (which reports MN taxes), he makes a claim about the reasons for the progressive tax burden being higher on the wealthy than the poor as "The left cites the study's findings on taxes as a percent of income as a measure or tax fairness. Thus, should your income go up, so should your taxes lest the burden of government fall disproportionately on the poor." Yet nowhere does Mr. Lewis present those percentages, nowhere does he show levels of income. Of course not, that might undermine his argument for people to see that tax rates are nearly equal (when measured as a percentage of income).

Further, this statement by Lewis is (at best) a twisted form of the purpose for progressive taxes and barely brushes the truth. The "left" (certainly me) feels that the poor should not be asked to pay taxes at anything close to the rate the very wealthy would pay (as a percentage of income) - because to ask that would be to ask them to not eat, or not clothe their children, or not have a home. It has little to nothing to do with their "burden" of paying for government except in that taking more from them is asking them to go without food, shelter or clothing. Their disposable (after tax and after paying for clothing, food and shelter) income is virtually non-existent. Whatever portion they could possibly pay if you raised their taxes would mean they would starve, go without shelter, or go without warm clothing (things which they often do without anyway).

Mr. Lewis (in his table) doesn't bring up taxes as a percent of income, but rather total taxes paid, a point not at issue, and in fact, a fact which points out just how unfair society has become. He argues against one point by using facts (of his choosing) which neither speak to the point (percent of income), nor speak to the impact of the burden AND he misstates the argument in the first place. He invents a strawman, and proceeds to use different (and nearly useless) facts to make his own argument. Why are his facts useless? Because he fails to present WHY the rich are paying the rates of income they pay. In 1980, the wealthiest 5% paid 19% of all federal income taxes. At that time, the highest marginal rate was 70% and the capital gains rate was 25%. In 2008, they paid 36% of federal income taxes.

How is it possible their tax contribution doubled??????? As well, how is it possible that in Minnesota they are paying 43% of the total taxes??????????? It is simple, when the product (of a multiplication) doubles (say Z in X * Y=Z) despite one of the multipliers being cut in half (i.e. Y is now .5), it means the original factor X, quadrupled. In 1970, top CEO pay was roughly 45 times that of an average worker, in 2007, it was (depending on who you listen to) between 350 times and 420 times that of an average worker. By contrast, the "vast prosperity" the right used to claim had broken out all over (prior to 2008), saw average incomes when adjusted for age (and measured per hour worked), fell 7%. The rising tide of extreme affluence hasn't "lifted all boats" as my (former) Senator Norm Coleman used to love to claim. Further, the "prosperity" which supposedly broke out was fueled by the middle-class taking out loans against their home equity, not increases in income.

In what was a planful attempt by investment banks to acquire that equity by luring/encouraging home-owners to spend that equity in life-style maintaining loans written out to them (source Michael Lewis - "The Big Short") - the big-bank leaders, those who pilory the middle-class as stupid for "living too high on the hog", don't like to admit it, but they know full well that they encouraged this behavior and profited greatly from it. In fact, in 2005, 40% of all corporate income in the US was made through financial services companies, and I can assure you from experience, MOST of that was from the mortgage bond market and associated derivatives. So the middle-class was "stupid" for doing EXACTLY what the wealthiest wanted them to do.

The facts of a new "super-rich" class are indisputable (just like the TRUTH that the Earth IS warming is indisputable). Most of us see it, read about it, every day. The fact that they pay more, in Minnesota and across the country, than the poorest 50% is neither surprising nor is it proper, but not for the reasons Lewis claims, but rather because it reflects just how extraordinarily unfair our nation has become. We have crumbling schools, roads and support networks for the poor. Our "christian charity" seems to have lost it's way as we cut and cut some more programs designed to act as safety nets for our increasingly larger population of poor. We hear complaints about the pay of public sector workers, but NEVER a complaint about the extravagant incomes (and lifestyles) of the uber-rich.

Yet, Mr. Lewis wants to focus only a myopic set of facts which merely reinforce the level of increasing unfairness. I'm not sure if he'd rather the poorest 50% pay 50% of the taxes (perhaps that's how it should be done, we all pay an equal amount in a society where the upper 1% have VASTLY more than the poorest 1% and benefit from the infrastructure created by those taxes VASTLY more) - I mean, if you oppose having the wealthiest pay according to their level of free income, then seemingly you support having it be equal across the board or lowering it (at least) for the most wealthy - thereby increasing the burden on the rest... No, he didn't make that argument, but it sure seems he thinks he's pointing out that it's unfair as it is NOW. No, wait, he's just saying they already pay a disproportionate share, but the word dispropotionate implies at least an idea that it is out of proportion and therefore seemingly unfair.

In fact many on the right have argued how unfair it is that the poorest 50% pay nearly nothing in income taxes while the rich pay so much and yet, according them AND Lewis, get little in return. He fails to mention the airports, the highways, the sewers, the public works, the pollution controls, etc.. which make it possible for industry to thrive (and them to be wealthy)..hmmm....and he uses tables which purport to reflect an disproportionate burden of tax..hmmm, no he's surely not arguing it's already unfair without saying it.. hmmm. No, much like his use of East Anglia, and deceitfully titled article, I'm sure he wouldn't be arguing a point subtely which he knows full well is poppey-cock and so won't say directly.

Even if he isn't claiming the tax rates are unfair, he failed to include data which shows the TOTAL tax burden (federal, state and local) on the wealthy as a percentage of income is nearly identical to that on the poor, each group pays roughly 16-17%, as do all quintiles. So I guess we already DO have a flat tax despite the fact that the rich have doubled their incomes. He also fails to point out tax rates (nationally) were cut in half, he also fails to point out that we've gone from 13 Billionaires in 1967 (as measured by wealth equal to 20,000 average worker's pay) to 142 in 2002. He also fails to address capital appreciation, e.g. the value of owned assets, which is not accounted for in income tax measurements until/unless it is sold and even in that can be masked, and which is the BEST measure of actual wealth. As previous posts have pointed out, when measuring true net worth (the net worth of someone after their personal dwelling is factored out) the wealthy OWN about 90% of this country, so that's why they are asked to pay for the majority of the taxes, and when measured that way, they pay LESS than their percentage of ownership - in fact, substantially less when considering all taxes paid.

The United States is a land which vastly favors the rich, not the poor, if it were otherwise, we'd see declining wealth at the top, not skyrocketting increases. In 2010, CEO pay went up 27%! over 2009 alone, did you get a 27% raise? Me neither. As well, we're asking the public sector workers to pay thousands of dollars more in health care premiums which used to be paid for by state governments - when is a tax increase not a tax increase, when it's disguised as a cut to benefits, for that increase in premiums from those workers most assuredly takes disposable income out of their hands and is done in lieu of having the rich contribute that portion (after all, according to Lewis, the rich PAID the taxes used to cover those premiums in the past).

So, we cut benefits causing the middle-class to pay more, so the rich can pay less..no, we don't have any problems with our tax rationale, nope. If having the rich pay more in taxes isn't fair and will kill jobs, how fair is it to have the middle-class pay more out of pocket, how many fewer jobs will that lead to? Attacking those (the poor) who can least defend themselves rather than addressing your problems (you've let the rich take-over your country and your income) is the mark of a nation in steep decline.

Mouth-pieces like Lewis know that the crap they trowel out is crap, but they just don't care - they get a nice, fat paycheck for doing it and they also hope to someday join that uber-rich club - which is the same reason many in the middle-class fail to seek fairness in our tax code, they don't want to face that fairness. (As side-note; What they (and he) don't get is that their chances of joining that super-elite club are less than their chances of winning the lottery.) Regardless, Lewis created a strawman (we don't tax the poor because we don't want too large a burden placed on them for government) combined with arguing about tax burdens and percents of incomes, then presented facts which spoke to neither point (he failed to cite the percentage of taxes paid against income), he pointed out that the 40 Million dollars paid in tax credits to the poorest 20% of Minnesotans (the bottom 20% or about 900,000 people in MN) represented disproportionate, seeming to try to create an impression that the whopping $45 in tax credits per person somehow reflected an unfair/unequal benefit to those who pay little/nothing. He didn't bother to talk about ACTUAL rates, the changes over the past 30 years, net worth, capital gain, or ANYTHING else which points out what we all understand, namely that the wealthy are getting far wealthier while the nation stagnates.

That jobs have vanished, while corporate profits skyrocket is widely documented. That the uber-rich bemoaning the "high living" lifestyles of public sector workers or the middle-class is the height of irony, considering that complaint is coming from those who are standing on the deck of their 150' multi-million dollar yacht. The wealthy seek to repeal the estate tax, not because its unfair to the dead (though they'll claim it is), after all, they're dead and the tax is paid by the survivors, not the dead. They seek to repeal it because if left unchanged, it will affect something like 40 TRILLION dollars in estates over the next 20 or so years and they don't want to lose their vast net worth.

They seek to claim that tax rates are either "just fine" or unfairly squash "job creators", both notions are nonsense, jobs have fled, not been created and we don't have enough revenue to cover expenses in tough economic times quite simply because we no longer ask those who benefit from the system and can afford to pay for it, to pay a fair share of their disposable income or net worth. Worse, our changes in tax code in the 1980's seem to have strongly encouraged and rewarded the rich to move jobs out of the country and to seek to cut worker pay quite simply because they now could keep much more of corporate income for themselves personally. Those effects have been rampant and replete over the past 30 years. We have created (or allowed to be created) a nation of a very small number of "super haves" and a very large number of "have almost nothings" and complaining that those who have nearly nothing aren't paying enough or a fair share is nothing less than blaming the victims.

Mr. Lewis, you are a deceiver, you are a corrupt enabler, you blame the powerless. You know better and you profit from the misery of others. I don't blame you personally (I suppose) for their have always been snake-oil salesmen, I wish my paper wouldn't give you heed, there are after all much better and more honest conservatives - but make no mistake, your "facts" are cherry-picked and present a fiction, in short, you are a sophist, and your arguments, like your "movement" is spelled S - O - P - H - I - S - T - R - Y.