The most trenchant observation of journalistic culture I've seen in a while, from Time Magazine:
The funny thing is, the reporters the blogosphere hates the most (exhibit A: Broder) are the ones who spend the most time talking to voters, while the ones they lionize never come out from behind their keyboards.
The problem is, voters bore journalists. Not because we're elites and they're proles, or we're smart and they're stupid, or however you want to frame it. Voters bore journalists because we are supposed to find out what they think about policy--and they don't, much. We, on the other hand, spend all of our time immersed in this stuff. Talking about politics with your average voter is, for most journalists, like an engineer trying to explain to his mother how a television set works. You love Mom, and there's no reason she should know--but just the same, this is for most engineers a less than fascinating conversation. Now imagine that the dialogue consisted, not of telling Mom how a television works, but nodding sagely while she--the doyenne of the County General obstetric nursing staff--tells you.
I know, with great certainty, that tax cuts do not increase revenue in the near term. But do I wish to discuss the matter with my Republican relatives in western New York? Frankly, I find this prospect only slightly more appealing than being slow-roasted over Al Gore's new eco-friendly water-heater. Uncle Leon is not going to wade through the five hundred pages of prep material he'd need for us to start out on the same page. And the alternative--that my relatives sit with fixed smiles while I, The Great Journalist, Tell Them How It Is--sounds, if anything, even worse.
Unfortunately for us, voters know a lot that we don't. They know, for starters, what it is like to live as something other than a financially fragile, hyper-educated wordsmith. This is valuable information that we're missing because no one wants to spend time with people who don't share their passion for political arcana. Instead, ordinary voters get used as quote farms to spice up the pieces whose general themes were mentally typeset long before the reporter got to the rally.
Unfortunately for us, voters know a lot that we don't.
This is a powerful truth that your fellow journalists often forget. It's probably human nature to regard those things you know a lot about as being the only things really worth knowing. But it isn't wise to think that way.
My only comment here, Ms McArdle, is that YOUR focus is economics, which is more or less a science. It has facts, figures and a rich history of case studies and documentation.
A political debate over something less scientific is a horse of a different color. How much background, for example, is needed to discuss the local school board's decision to outlaw guns within a five mile radius of all schools? Or a city council's decision to change zoning laws to encourage less "impervious cover"?
For lots of things, you can be caught up on the issue in a quick read of a news story or blog entry. No college degree required.
Maybe. But two caveats
1) The journalists that the blogoshpere hates most tend to be political journalists, and especially commentators (as opposed to reporters)
2) I don't see a hell of a lot of evidence that political journalists / commentators are policy experts, e.g., Joe Klein on FISA.
And if journalists know so much about policy, it's curious that over the years, as they supposedly learn more and more and more, how uncommon it is to find one whose opinions have been changed from all they've learned.
I'm not even a journalist and I know the feeling. When I'm in a cafe and overhear dim yet passionate discussions, I just contain my eye-rolling and keep my face on my laptop. When a friend tries to tell me about the general state of the world, as happened yesterday, I just smile and benignly diffuse his moment of self-perceived clairvoyance with a gentle:
"well, come on now, it's not that simple, it never is..." or something to that effect.
It really isn't that fun.
But, speaking of policy, I read Cato 's daily commentary about Obama this morning.
As a fellow libertarian rationalizing support for Obama, I must say that it gets harder to constantly have to ignore a lot of bad things in the area of specific policy....even if Goolsbee is trying to steer him in a better direction.
you can be caught up on the issue in a quick read of a news story
This, of course, assumes that the journalists who wrote the story were correct in choosing between their ass and a hole in the ground when it came to the subject of the story. That's a 50-50 proposition in most cases.
MM wrote: Instead, ordinary voters get used as quote farms to spice up the pieces whose general themes were mentally typeset long before the reporter got to the rally.
I think that one statement indicts at least 85% of everything that ever passed for televised "news". And I include the Big 3, not just Fox, which merely has the misfortune of being more shameless and transparent in its exploits.
Rob:
Indeed, in many fields you find that the reports are trained 'journalists', rather than subject matter experts. I find newspaper articles on computer science cringeworthy about 70% of the time; if the political reporters are no better informed (and I doubt they are), well...
Then, of course, there is the problem of egregious non-randomness. That is, by recording the thoughts of individual voters, they are essentially gathering data points both to document opinion and, tacitly, allow readers to generalize from it. Research suggests that, in the aggregate, voters do hold somewhat informed and consistent opinions about important issues. Reporters pumping voters for juicy soundbites, though, is about as rigorous as Jay Leno canvassing LA for pedestrians who don't know where France is, followed up by a quick pass through the editing room to ensure maximum hilarity.
Not to detract from the main point, but am I the only prole who now kind of wants Ms McArdle to explain to me why tax cuts do not increase revenue in the short term?
but am I the only prole who now kind of wants Ms McArdle to explain to me why tax cuts do not increase revenue in the short term?
Uhm...this may be over-simplyfing, but in the short term, a tax cut means that less money is sent in to the government. Larger effects (if any) of stimulating the economy and/or making people less likely to seek special exemptions and tax shelters are not within the short-term time horizon.
I'm not even a journalist and I know the feeling. When I'm in a cafe and overhear dim yet passionate discussions, I just contain my eye-rolling and keep my face on my laptop. When a friend tries to tell me about the general state of the world, as happened yesterday, I just smile and benignly diffuse his moment of self-perceived clairvoyance with a gentle:
"well, come on now, it's not that simple, it never is..." or something to that effect.
It really isn't that fun.
VOMIT! John, for your sake, never EVER say anything like this at work, on a date, at the store, or anywhere in public....EXCEPT FOR...at any Starbuck's. THERE it's a beautiful personality. The rest of the world, that kind of confidence is not so pretty....just sayin'...
Point taken, Egomaniac. Although, if you get the drift from my post, I generally avoid discussion of politics so it's really a moot point.
I usually speak when spoken to on these matters...and even then I'm pretty thrifty and brief.
That aside, I'm not really sure if found my comment insulting or in poor taste...if you did, I don't see why.
Charles: "why tax cuts do not increase revenue in the short term?"
Charles, I think it's time to get started on those 500 pages of prep material...
I know, from long empirically-based experience, that every dollar I do not send into government increases my net revenue by one dollar. It works every time it's tried.
I'm willing to consider the proposition, in theory, that due to massive economies of scale, superior research, a sound and rational decision-making process, or what have you, that in the long run, my net revenues will be greater by giving to government in the short run, because they can achieve a greater ROI on my investment in government.
But that's in theory. In practice, I see little evidence that that is the case. They are useful at managing certain types of risk. But they have an inflated opinion of their ability to do that efficiently.
Not to detract from the main point, but am I the only prole who now kind of wants Ms McArdle to explain to me why tax cuts do not increase revenue in the short term?
Posted by Charles | February 22, 2008 1:41 PM
I'm interested too, but mainly because I am wondering what Megan considers short term and if she actually meant to imply that they do in fact increase revenue in the long term.
If that is the case it may be worth taking the loss over 2 or 3 years for the gain over the next 10 or 20.
Unfortunately for us, voters know a lot that we don't.
Even more unfortunately, although voters may collectively know a lot, individually they are as ignorant as a very ignorant thing.
How do you extract the useful information when it is scattered so thinly, and mixed with so much that is misleading, false or simply useless?
Unfortunately, wordsmithing as a profession frequently leaves the smith entirely ignorant regarding the topic that they are crafting senstences for. I can't tell you how many times I've read punditry or reporting, and thought to myself, "Do they not have maps at universities anymore?", or, "Golly, I rather suspect that this person has likely never filled out an IRS document more complicated than a 1040EZ, and certainly nothing more complicated than a Schedule A."
Jason Von Steenwyck: "they [government] can achieve a greater ROI on my investment in government. But that's in theory. In practice, I see little evidence that that is the case."
The "governmment" confusion aside, here's some evidence. The rocketship of American prosperity didn't take off until 1947--following the new deal, and WWII--during which taxes as a percentage of GDP were their highest ever (45%), before or since.
In the fifties--while top marginal rates were 90%--the number of americans with discretionary income *doubled*. By 1960 nearly two thirds of americans owned their own homes, 87 percent had televisions, and 75 percent owned cars.
This doesn't show that higher taxes create prosperity. It does show that they don't prevent it.
I should have qualified: taxes *within historical ranges, in developed countries.*
I'm interested too, but mainly because I am wondering what Megan considers short term and if she actually meant to imply that they do in fact increase revenue in the long term.
If you scroll back, she's been quite clear that she thinks the US is on the side of the peak in the Laffer Curve where tax cuts will cut revenue in the long term.
The thing that is frightening is that so many of the inside the Beltway types - and their equivalent at the states - that run the government (legislative and executive side) have the same level of ignorance and don't know it or don't care.
For example, one of the talking head experts that has popped up over the years to talk against missile defense programs touts having a PhD, yet it is an honorary one - not an earned one, and also is a believer in UFO coverup conspiracies.
If only we could bomb all of the rest of the developed world's last few decades of infrastructure and reduce the labor force by taking women out of the workforce and forcing black people back to low paying jobs, then you're right.
But back in reality, they late forties through the sixties were a very unique time in US economic history. If you want to use that as your argument, I'm less than persuaded. Now, if you want to compare communities /states in those time frames then go ahead.
Megan re:
Maybe you could extend that statement a bit. It isn't true as a universal for all situations.
Perhaps something like "I know, with great certainty, that ordinary personal incomes tax cuts from current American levels, do not increase revenue in the near term."
Tax cuts from very high levels, or capital gains cuts from any but low, perhaps very low, levels, may indeed increase tax revenue in the short run.
People who are knowledgeable still make dumb decisions.
Voters know a hell of a lot more about what they actually want than pundits or reporters.
While the wonks are quibbling over the details of individual programs, etc... I suspect a lot of voters are thinking that government is doing a lot of stupid stuff badly and should just stop doing a lot of it. Other voters are wanting government to give them money or other things and don't care where it comes from.
Earnest Iconoclast, there's probably a lot of truth to that, but then again, something like 53% of voters in 2000 thought Bush was the pro-legal abortion candidate. A lot of people were pumped up for the war in Iraq and couldn't even find it on a map, know a Sunni from a Shi'ite, etc.