Why Acronyms Aren't Always a Good Idea in Politics

Acronyms are a common fixture in politics. For example, many people have likely heard the term RINO for Republican In Name Only. However, acronyms can easily backfire on a campaign, especially when the opponent's campaign is filled with clever wisecrackers.

Carly Fiorina's Sentate campaign attempted to brand her opponent Tom Campbell, who is a well-established, fiscal conservative, as a FCINO via her campaign's bizarre Demon Sheep advertisement. What does FCINO mean? According to the Fiorina campaign, it means Fiscal Conservative In Name Only. The Campbell campaign cleverly shot back with Fact Checking Is Not Optional.

Likewise, President Obama's Organizing for America is selling T-shirts proudly proclaiming that "Health Reform is a BFD." What does BFD mean in this context? Exactly what you think. It's a polite version of Vice-President Biden's candid and quiet comment to President Obama, caught on an open microphone. I saw an alternate version of the shirt, slightly modified, that proclaimed instead that "Health Reform is a BFD, Big Financial Disaster." Question: Does anybody know who sells these?

A Hidden Gem: Even Authors Get It!

With Tax Day rapidly approaching, I thought I would share a little gem discovered while reading Steve Martini's political thriller, Shadow of Power, embedded on pages 126 and 127.

As dreaded April 15th engulfs me, I have just finished another frustratingly-confusing 80-plus-page love letter to my favorite uncle, Uncle Sam, who seems in constant need of ever more money. My accountant assures me that all is correct, but how am I to know for sure?

I thought about highlighting the particularly good or entertaining sections of this gem but then realized that I would end up highlighting most of it anyway.

"Only the insane of the eighteenth century could foresee that a bleak two lines added to the Constitution a century after its creation, authorizing the collection of a federal income tax, could result in a seventy-year rampage by government to mentally rape its own citizens with millions of pages of totally unintelligible tax laws, rules, regulations, and forms.

"Today we have special federal tax courts because the law is so convoluted that ordinary federal judges are presumed too ignorant and unschooled to understand the complexi­ties of laws and forms that every citizen down to the village janitor is required to understand, to obey, and to sign under penalty of perjury and threat of imprisonment.

"Nor could it be possible in the Age of Reason to foresee a Social Security system that if run by a private business would result in their arrest, prosecution, and conviction for operating a Ponzi scheme. In the real world, taking invested funds in the form of Social Security taxes, paying current claims, and skimming the rest for other purposes is called embezzlement. When government does it, it is simply called politics. In either case the arithmetic is always the same. When the scheme goes belly-up, its operators, if they're smart, will be in Brazil, or, in the case of Congress, retired, which is the political equivalent of being in Brazil.

"With all of this, the people in what is touted as the great­est democracy on the planet have no effective recourse. They cannot act directly to fix any of the obvious open sores or seeping wounds in their own government, because the founders didn't trust them with the only effective medicine, the power to amend their own Constitution. That is reserved the power to a serpent its creators never saw. 

"Short of revolution, something Jefferson urged take place at least every twenty years, the average citizen is left to pound sand by casting a largely empty vote to replace the devil-in-office with the devil-in-waiting and hope that the caustic nature of power to corrupt can somehow be neutralized.

"Praying for the devil to grow a halo, we all plod on, one foot in front of the other, trusting that somehow we will not follow the Soviet Union over the national cliff."

The Problem with California Education Spending--It's Not Education

On March 4, 2010, students and educators around California protested against draconian cuts in education within the California state government budget. However, there are larger issues involved, namely the actual root cause of California's budget mess.

The following chart shows California's expenditures on education relative to the state's total expenditures. The education expenditures include funding for Kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) plus funding for higher education. Note that the state's total expenditures have increased far faster than education funding.

The chart below shows the same data but this time adjusted for inflation. The expenditures are normalized to 1976 dollars (although not adjusted for California's increased population). In this chart, spending that tracks inflation appears as a flat line. Funding for higher education has essentially tracked inflation while K-12 and total education expenditures increased slightly faster than inflation.

However, notice that total state expenditures grew far faster than the inflation rate. This is the root cause of California's budget mess. While this chart is not normalized for both inflation AND population growth, spending did grow much faster than population. California's population increased by 24% from 1990 to 2009, or 29.76 million to 36.96 million. Meanwhile, inflation-adjusted spending rose 85% from 1990 to 2009 or three and half times faster than population growth!

California's budget problems do not necessarily reside within the education budget, although there is always room for improvement. Because of increased budget demands elsewhere, money is siphoned away from education. Fix the runaway state spending in other areas and the educational budget will fix itself. State spending must be reduced!

Similarly, California's overly-progressive Personal Income Tax mechanism relies too heavily on too few taxpayers and is therefore highly volatile, leading to massive swings in state revenues, depending on real estate returns and the stock market. California's tax structure must be revised to make revenues more consistent, dampening the year-to-year swings.

What is California's Legislature doing to fix these issues? Not much! Instead of focussing on balancing the budget or reforming California's out-of-control public-employee pension system, Legislators pass useless resolutions such as the Cuss-Free Week.

What can you do? Contact your California State and Assembly representatives and let them know that you want them to focus on sanely balancing the budget, cutting spending in areas besides education, and reforming the state pension system.

Find Your California Senate and Assembly Representative
http://192.234.213.69/lmapsearch/framepage.asp

Learn more on what other current and former state leaders have to say.

Former California State Assembly Leader, Willie Brown
soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2010/03/even-liberal-democrat-willie-brown-sees.html

California State Treasurer, Bill Lockyer
soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2010/02/california-treasurer-lockyer-scolds.html

See also ...

"Why The Student Protestors Are Wrong"
www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/03/why_the_student_protestors_are.html

Sources:

California Program Expenditures
www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/documents/CHART-C1.pdf

Inflation Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (CUUR0000AA0)
data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?cu

Even Liberal Democrat Willie Brown Sees the Problem!

They say that the first road to recovery is to admit that you have a problem. Well, perhaps there is hope for California yet!

Willie Brown, a life-long liberal Democrat, served in the California Assembly for 30 years, was Speaker of the California Assembly for 15 years, and was San Francisco's first African-American mayor. So imagine my surprise to find the following in his "Willie's World" column in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, dated 3-JAN-2010.

Willie's World (3-JAN-2010)
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/03/BA2V1BBGHH.DTL

"If we as a state want to make a New Year's resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it's time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we've become.

"Take the civil service.

"The system was set up so politicians like me couldn't come in and fire the people (relatives) hired by the guy they beat and replace them with their own friends and relatives.

"Over the years, however, the civil service system has changed from one that protects jobs to one that runs the show.

"The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life.

"But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits to private-sector levels while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers.

"Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders. But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact that 80 percent of the state, county and city budget deficits are due to employee costs.

"Either we do something about it at the ballot box, or a judge will do something about in Bankruptcy Court. And if you think I'm kidding, just look at Vallejo."

One question, Mr. Brown: Why all this honesty now? Why not a decade or two ago so that we could have avoided all this turmoil? I guess better late than never.

See also ...

California Treasurer Lockyer Scolds Fellow Democrats on Unsustainable Pensions and Their Inability to Fix the Problem
http://soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2010/02/california-treasurer-lockyer-scolds.html

Jerry Brown won't challenge teachers union
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/27/BATQ1HU1VQ.DTL

What Does the Obama Job Chart Really Mean?

An old joke says that there are three kind of lies.

1. Lies


2. Damn lies


3. Statistics

To that list, I would add data visualizations, especially when seemingly misused to purposely misinform the electorate.

By now, you've likely seen the chart, courtesy of Barak Obama's Organizing for America (OFA), showing the miraculous reduction in job losses after President Obama took office and the Congress passed the $787 billion Stimulus plan.

This visually-striking graphic is such fantastic news that Organizing for American even made a video highlighting the chart.



Something about this jobs chart bothers me. As of February, 2010, unemployment is still stubbornly high. So, how can it be that the Obama Administration seemingly eliminated unemployment? From the chart, it seems that the President halted and reversed unemployment to roughly the same level as December, 2007. I showed this chart to a number of engineering and accounting friends--people accustomed to working with charts and graphs--and they came to similar conclusions based solely on the chart. However, it is not true.

This chart seems designed to purposely deceive. How? The chart shows the monthly change in unemployment, not total unemployment. Of course, the original chart does not indicate this, but I've been able to reproduce the chart using source data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

How is this deceptive? Allow me to illustrate with an example. A man goes out on the town with his girlfriend to celebrate her birthday with dinner and a movie. Over the evening, he makes a number of purchases as shown in the table.

Graphically, the evening's spending per transaction looks like the following chart. At first glance, it appears that this lucky man had a great night on the town with his favorite girl and even turned a small profit. From the chart, one might assume that the man spent some money but then started making money after dinner and ended the evening with more money in his wallet than when he started!

How is this possible? It's not. It's a bit of graphical and presentation trickery. The chart shows the change in the data, not the present state.

The previous table and chart shows the amount of spending per transaction. However, the real effect on the man's wallet is the cumulative spending, as illustrated in the following table and chart.

While the spending per transaction, or the change in spending, is dramatic during the middle of the evening, it tapers off at the end. In fact, because the man found a $5 bill, the evening apparently ends on a high note! However, the cumulative, out-of-pocket expenses for the evening totals nearly $300. In one presentation of the data, the man apparently ends the evening with $5 in his wallet when in reality, he is down $300.

How does apply to Organizing for America's jobs chart?

The original chart shows the number of jobs gained or lost per month, or the monthly change in the jobs number. However, if the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 5%, 50%, or even 100%, the monthly change in unemployment is zero. Actual unemployment is not zero, just the monthly change in unemployment. See the difference? The following chart presents the cumulative job loss over the same time period, using the same data, and more clearly shows that unemployment increased over time and has not returned to December 2007 levels. While it is good news that monthly job losses have slowed (what the Organizing for America chart actually shows), the unemployment situation has not miraculously disappeared (what the Organizing for American chart seems to imply).

There are many ways to distort the visual presentation to reflect a particular political view. For example, here is the same data presented in yet a different manner. In this example, the chart compares cumulative unemployment during the final year of President George W. Bush's presidency and the first year of President Barak Obama's presidency. While the original graph seems to indicate that unemployment improved after President Obama took office, in reality the job market continued hemorrhaging!

Here is a chart of the showing the total number of officially unemployed based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The number is even greater than the cumulative chart before as there were over 7.5 million unemployed when the crisis deepened.

To put this into historical perspective, how does the current unemployment trough compare to those from prior recessions, measured in months from the beginning of the recession? The current trough is deeper and it appears will last longer than prior recessions.

The original Organizing for America chart appears to be purposely deceptive. It falsely appears to indicate that the Obama Administration has completely reversed unemployment when clearly, this is not the case. With the nation already split on so many issues, the electorate needs to operate from a truthful set of data without willful distortions. Sure, there can be multiple interpretations of the same data, but those interpretations should clearly indicate what data is presented.

See also ...

Unemployment Chart Wars
www.targetpointconsulting.com/ToThePoint/2010/02/18/unemployment-chart-wars

President Obama, I Fixed Your Chart For You
www.politicalmathblog.com/?p=364

Same Data, Two Charts, Two Implications
http://www.blogger.com/www.pollster.com/blogs/same_data_two_charts_two_impli.php

Does a Republican Congress Create More Jobs?
www.politicalmathblog.com/?p=383

In Pictures: The Obama and Pelosi Job Gaps
blog.heritage.org/2010/03/03/in-pictures-the-obama-and-pelosi-job-gaps/

American job losses by the numbers
www.theyoungturks.com/story/2010/1/10/22042/6618/Diary/American-job-losses-by-the-numbers-

An Honest Health Care Debate?: Are We Really THIS #*&@ Stupid?
http://www.blogger.com/soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-care-reform-are-we-really-this.html

Provides previous examples how Organizing for America attempted to distort open and honest debate

Sources:

Bureau of Labor Statistics

• 1-month change in unemployment
  http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=CES0000000001&output_view=net_1mth

• General unemployment information
  http://www.bls.gov/data/

Spreadsheets and Chart Data

• All spreadsheets and charts used in this blog posting
  http://www.editgrid.com/user/soquel_by_the_creek/Obama_Admin_Job_Chart
  
• BLS 1-month unemployment data
  

  1-Month Net Change
  Series Id: CES0000000001
  
  Seasonally Adjusted
  Super Sector: Total nonfarm
  Industry: Total nonfarm
  NAICS Code: -
  Data Type: ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS
  
  
  Year,Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec,Annual,
  2000,249,121,472,286,225,-46,163,3,122,-11,231,138,
  2001,-16,61,-30,-281,-44,-128,-125,-160,-244,-325,-292,-178,
  2002,-132,-147,-24,-85,-7,45,-97,-16,-55,126,8,-156,
  2003,83,-158,-212,-49,-6,-2,25,-42,103,203,18,124,
  2004,150,43,338,250,310,81,47,121,160,351,64,132,
  2005,136,240,142,360,169,246,369,195,63,84,334,158,
  2006,262,326,304,174,31,69,232,141,100,43,201,177,
  2007,194,104,239,92,149,55,-20,-71,52,86,128,70,
  2008,-10,-50,-33,-149,-231,-193,-210,-334,-458,-554,-728,-673,
  2009,-779,-726,-753,-582,-347,-504,-344,-211,-225,-224,64,-150(P),
  2010,-20(P), , , , , , , , , , , ,

• BLS Unemployment Data
  

  Series Id: LNS13000000
  
  Seasonally Adjusted
  Series title: (Seas)
  Unemployment Level
  Labor force status: Unemployed
  Type of data: Number
  in thousands
  Age: 16 years and over
  
  
  Year,Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec,Annual,
  2000,5708,5858,5733,5481,5758,5651,5747,5853,5625,5534,5639,5634,
  2001,6023,6089,6141,6271,6226,6484,6583,7042,7142,7694,8003,8258,
  2002,8182,8215,8304,8599,8399,8393,8390,8304,8251,8307,8520,8640,
  2003,8520,8618,8588,8842,8957,9266,9011,8896,8921,8732,8576,8317,
  2004,8370,8167,8491,8170,8212,8286,8136,7990,7927,8061,7932,7934,
  2005,7784,7980,7737,7672,7651,7524,7406,7345,7553,7453,7566,7279,
  2006,7059,7185,7075,7122,6977,6998,7154,7097,6853,6728,6883,6784,
  2007,7085,6898,6725,6845,6765,6966,7113,7096,7200,7273,7284,7696,
  2008,7628,7435,7793,7631,8397,8560,8895,9509,9569,10172,10617,11400,
  2009,11919,12714,13310,13816,14518,14721,14534,14993,15159,15612,15340,15267,
  2010,14837, , , , , , , , , , , ,
  

California Treasurer Lockyer Scolds Fellow Democrats on Unsustainable Pensions and Their Inability to Fix the Problem

I missed the following video when it first became available in October 2009. In it, often-outspoken California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer is addressing members of the California state Legislature. From his comments, one might naturally assume that this is yet another broadside attack against Democrats by a partisan Republican. However, Bill Lockyer is a career Democrat politician since 1973 and has also served as California's Attorney General and as President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate.

Finally, some real honesty in government. God bless you, Bill Lockyer!

Here are a few noteable quotables.

I'm sorry, but two-thirds of the bills that I see come out of the Assembly, if they never saw the light of day, God bless it.
...
Just stop it! I mean they're junk! And they're consuming all your staff time with junk!
...
Nancy Reagan's right. Just say no.
...
It's impossible for this Legislature to reform the pension system and if we don't, we bankrupt the state.
...
And I don't think anybody can do it here because of who elected you. You're just captive of the current environment. I don't see any way out. [QUESTION: Who is the "who elected you"? Is it public-employee unions like the SEIU, teacher's union, and the prison guard union?]
...
Democrats need to call out other Democrats on it. That's two-thirds of the problem (Democrats represent nearly two-thirds of the Legislature).
...
In an era when we aren't going to have tax increases, give it up. Figure out how to be more efficient about spending the money we've got.
...
And the Republicans can help you do that if they'll get off the philosophical "can't" about stuff and help you make things more efficient. They actually, culturally know more, and occupationally know more, about efficiencies than Democrats typically do.

Some other links.

Video: California treasurer tells legislature to get a clue
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/24/video-california-treasurer-tells-legislature-to-get-a-clue/

See also ...

Even Liberal Democrat Willie Brown Sees the Problem!
soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2010/03/even-liberal-democrat-willie-brown-sees.html

Is He Asking About Toyota or the U.S. Government?

Druing the recent Congressional hearings with Toyota executives about reported safety issues, Rep. Elijah Cummings asked the following questions. In light of corruption, overspending, budget deficits, poor management, etc., etc., couldn't these same questions be asked of the Unites States government itself? At least Toyota had an excellent reputation going into this fiasco.

Congressman Elijah Cummings (Democrat, Maryland):

Time after time, there are pronounements that problems are being addressed. Over and over again, they seem that they're not being addressed.
...
But that trust is hard to ... re-establish when they see over and over again these kinds of situations and they say, "Well, why should we believe that things are going to get better?"
...
How do you say to your customers (the electorate)--the people who take their hard-earned dollars, in a tough economic time--and spend them on a Toyota vehicle (send them to Washington as taxes), how do you say to them, "We can trust you" ... when it seems as if there as if there is no end to this series of ... promises that seem to fall short ...?

Perhaps if our elected officials could answer these questions, we, the electorate would have a better impression of Congress and have more trust in our leaders.