Yesterday, Obama said that that
There are polls showing right now that the American people, for the most part, think it’s a bad idea to provide tax cuts to the wealthy.
And that's undeniably true. When one looks at people who don't want anyone to get continued tax cuts (and therefore don't want the wealthy to get additional years of a lowered tax rate on any adjusted gross income over about $230,000), and adds to that the people who believe that the less-wealthy should get tax cuts extended, one comes up with more than 50% of the American public in almost every available poll.
But somehow Politifact thinks it's only a "Mostly True" comment! Obama's statement doesn't need any additional information in order to be understood as a fair and accurate representation of what Americans believe.
Politifact PolitiFact came to the conclusion today that his comment is only "Mostly True", which means
Mostly True – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
Here's what Politifact said. They started out by describing the polls that they used to debunk something that Republican Rep John Boehner had said a week ago, and how they judged his comment, as a springboard to explain how they then judged Obama's statement.
Boehner, in comments to reporters on Dec. 1, said that "the American people spoke pretty loudly. They said stop all the looming tax hikes...." We gauged the accuracy of Boehner's claim by looking at four public opinion polls taken since the election that asked questions about what should be done with the Bush tax cuts.
We concluded that the polls showed that while many Americans opposed an across-the-board expiration of the Bush tax cuts, it was not accurate for Boehner to say that the public spoke "pretty loudly" that Congress should "stop all the looming tax hikes." In fact, we found that a plurality of the "American people" actually supported what amounts to a tax hike for the wealthiest Americans. So we rated Boehner's comment False.
And so they accurately described what Boehner had said as being false. I personally think it should have been rated "Pants on Fire", since it was a clear misrepresentation of the facts, intended to mislead and deceive those listening to him, and clearly intended to dishonestly further the conservative agenda! His toxic misinformation poisons the national discourse, making those of us who fight for the truth have to combat that false meme that most Americans don't want the wealthy to have the tax rates increased.
So what did they say about what Obama said? He said that most Americans think that it's a bad idea to continue to provide tax cuts to the wealthy.
But Politifact's flawed conclusion was
(O)verall, the poll numbers support Obama’s general point, but they don’t fully justify his claim that "the American people for the most part think it’s a bad idea." Actually, in most of the polls just a plurality says that. On balance, we rate his statement Mostly True.
I sent an email to Poltifact right after I read their story.
The polls do, indisputably, support and fully justify Obama's claim that "the American people, for the most part, think it's a bad idea" to continue giving the wealthiest Americans lowered tax rates on their top earnings.
I explained this to Politifact in the email. I wrote and said
More than a plurality in almost every poll thinks that the wealthiest should not have an extension of tax cuts.
You can't just count those who want the tax cuts to go on for lower income people - you have to add to that number the people who want all tax cuts to be ended.
And when one does that, there's a majority in almost every poll that wants an immediate discontinuation of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
How can you possibly not know this? Really?
How can you possibly have missed that fact in these polls?
Without their permission, I won't publish their email reply, but I will tell you the substance of that email. They said that
- They had a better clarification of their stance about how to view those Americans polled who believe all tax cuts should be ended and why their polled responses shouldn't be counted to get us up to a majority, but it got cut due to space requirements.
Sorry, Politifact, but you can't get by with that nonsense. If it was an important clarification, then you can't excuse its exclusion from your story for space constraints!
- They argue that since the American people who want all tax cuts to end didn't single out the wealthy like Obama did, one can't count them! So, all Obama has on his side is a plurality of Americans, not a majority, not "most".
Well, that's bullshit. I wrote them back and told them so. I said
Ask yourself this simple question - do the people polled who said that no tax cuts should be extended think that it's a bad idea to provide tax cuts to the wealthy?
Of course they do. It's undeniable. They think it's a bad idea to provide tax cuts to any Americans, including the wealthiest ones!
And if they feel that way, they are part of the "most" of the "American people" who think it's a bad idea to provide tax cuts to the wealthy. How could you have missed this?
And so you can't not count their votes when one is evaluating Obama's comment!! Because that's the context in which he was saying it!
Ignoring what he was doing, in context, is dishonest on your part.