I’m tired of the all the discussion about Mitt Romney’s 47% remarks. But I want to say one (hopefully) last thing about it. Earlier this week, Ezra Klein published the graph on the left (click on it to see it at regular size). I know that I’ve been talking about Klein a lot recently, but as I said, he’s been really insightful.

What this graph shows is that the percentage of people who paid no federal income taxes was roughly 20% through the mid-1980s. There are three big reasons why it has gone up: Reagan, Bush Jr, and the Lesser Depression. There isn’t much to say about the Lesser Depression; when economic times are bad, there are more poor people who will not pay any federal income taxes. We see this in the 1970s, when the recession brought the number up and then in the 1980s, the recovery brought the number back down.[1]

What Reagan and Bush Jr did is very interesting. They both wanted to pass tax cuts that were highly regressive: giving the rich far more benefit than the poor. This is an article of faith on the right. About the only thing we absolutely know about a Romney administration is that it would lower taxes on the rich. But there’s a problem with this idea. You can’t get the 90% of the country who would get nothing from a tax cut to support such a proposal. So Reagan and Bush Jr offered minor tax cuts for the poor and middle class. One of the results of these cuts was to increase the percentage of people who paid no federal income tax.

This is just history and one can agree or disagree that these tax cuts were a good idea. But there is an outrage that has been going on for a while—Fox News has been pushing this idea that it is somehow wrong that almost half of the people don’t pay any federal income tax. (They often make matters worse by claiming that these people pay “no taxes” full stop.) Other conservative media outlets have done the same thing. And many Republican politicians have followed suit.

Here’s the outrage: the same people complaining about the poor not paying federal income taxes are the same people who created this situation to push through tax cuts for the rich! The Republicans are abusing the poor on both sides of this issue. First, they give the poor tiny tax cuts to justify enormous tax cuts for the rich. Once that’s done, they claim that the poor don’t pay enough in taxes.

There is more to this, of course. The Republicans who claim to always be for tax cuts are half-in for raising taxes on the poor. I say “half-in” because there are a lot of conservatives who see the trap here. (I don’t think they actually care about taxing the poor.) This is not real hypocrisy, however. The Republicans are clearly only interested in tax cuts for the wealthy. We saw this in the payroll tax fight earlier this year. But their rhetoric is always that taxes are bad for everyone. So they certainly seem to be hypocrites on this subject.

If we let them, the Republicans will raise taxes on the poor to a higher rate than it was in the early 80s when this madness started. But apparently, now is not the time. Romney is back tracking as fast as he can. But don’t think the issue will be dead for long. The poor are too convenient a punching bag for Republicans. You know how bullies love to pick on the weak.

[1] President Carter gets a bunch of blame for the late 70s recession while President Reagan gets a bunch of credit for “Morning in America.” This is wrong. Both the recession and the recovery were due to Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. In order to reduce inflation, he raised interest rates in the 1970s. This pretty much guaranteed that Carter would be a one term president. Once inflation was under control, he lowered interest rates and the economy took off. This pretty much guaranteed that Reagan would be a two term president. See the Wikipedia Stagflation article for more information.

I think this is good advice. But my thinking about consciousness and metaphysics—especially epistemology—makes me believe that better advice would be, “Don’t Believe Anything You Think.”

I just hope that this driver is constantly thinking that he should have bought a Honda. No, no! A ford. No… I know! Damn!

I just read a really interesting, thought provoking, and humane article An Open Letter to My Fat Father, From His Fat, Trans Son: Or, Fatherhood, Fatness, and Family. It is about coming to accept ones weight. But there is a wrinkle: it is by a transgender man.

On one level, I identify with the transgender community. I don’t feel comfortable in my own body—I never have. I wish that there were such an easy solution to my problem as changing my sex. The fact that the very idea seems ridiculous to me makes me think that this is not the primary issue that transgender people face.

All my life, I have battled gender identities. This was not an internal struggle. I’ve never felt particular gender bound. I’m very comfortable with my natural desires which are hardly typically male. On the other hand, although most men see me as effeminate, gay, or nonexistent, in an anthropological sense, I am very male. In fact, when I get manly men alone, I am often shocked by their girly underside. It seems that I am different only in lacking any respect for gender roles. I am a real man because I am a real man.

I would go further. I tend to find manly men pathetic. As I’ve gotten older, I can see very clearly how cowardly they are. Unlike me, they aren’t sure that they are “real” men. They’re like closeted gays, afraid that their friends will think less of them because they like soap operas or knitting. And that’s no way to live.

How is it to feel so completely wrong that you go under the knife? I have no idea. I won’t go to the doctor until my blood pressure is down to 60 over 40. So I’ve got to believe that transgender people are very serious about this. They deserve whatever can be done to feel normal (and not, as is stated in the article, just those who can afford it).

Regardless of this, I can’t but believe that the cultural norms that teach men that they can’t knit are the also partly to blame for people who feel they are the wrong gender. But if only for the male knitting fans, we need to get past our gender restrictions as much as we do our fat hatred.

That’s what they told me when I specifically requested to be reminded when it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It means “No.” And so I missed it. Finally, the perfect holiday: no business closures and… Pirates!

“The far right combines the pity of the minority with the power of the majority.” —Leon Wieseltier

This is according to Ari Melber on an internet-only bit from The Last Word, who I think may have the wording wrong. Perhaps that should be “self-pity”?

Update (22 September 2012 9:43 am)

I guess I was wrong about the “self-pity” change. I just found a more exact quote from—Surprise!—Ari Melber in Bill O’Reilly Raps: NYT Discovers Talk Radio-Hip Hop Nexus in The Nation:

That would make the quote more accurately, “The far right combines the power of a majority with the pity of a minority.” That does sound better. The right article makes all the difference in the world.

I’m not sure if I agree with Lawrence O’Donnell here, but this is powerful and insightful. There are many things to recommend it. For one, there is some Nixon administration history, and I love Nixon stuff. I really want to go to his library! And there is more about the now infamous Romney 47% video, where the real story seems to be the audience who make me despair of their class and for our society. My concern about accepting his argument is that I think the treatment of the Obama administration by the Republicans is the same as it was of the Clinton administration. All the talk of socialism and tyranny were the same then. I’m sure race is a factor, I just don’t think it is the primary one.

Watch this. It’s good:

Last weekend, I was walking around the Santa Rosa downtown, on my way to Treehorn Books to see if they had any new copies of Don Quixote that I don’t already have. This is a fools errand, because I think I already have every English translation of the book except for three minor quasi-translations from the early 19th century. But I still look. It makes me happy. (Plus, they have the first edition of the Putnam translation in a single volume. I keep not buying it because I already have several Putnam translations including the absolute first edition in two volumes. But it calls to me.)

So I’m on my way to the bookstore, and I see a bunch of Romney posters in a shop that has long been vacant. It had the “For Lease” sign clearly displayed above the door. This made me kind of mad: the owner (Or Realtor!) is such a partisan that he doesn’t care that these signs will turn off prospective tenants. Boy, was I wrong!

I look in the window and there were tables and chairs. There was even a Romney standee. That’s when I noticed the little sign in the window, “Sonoma County Republican Party.” At last, I’d found the seat of conservative power in Santa Rosa! The last time I saw them was a year ago at the Sonoma County Fair. They really annoyed me with their “No RINOs” sign. I thought, “How can a major party actively push the idea that they are a “little tent”? It annoyed me so much that I took them up on their bumper sticker design contest.

The “For Lease” sign was just perfect. I’m well aware that some Democratic politicians can be rented, but if you want to lease, you have to go Republican. What’s more, in front of the building (just outside of the frame because I was scared) was a crazy man ranting about some unseen force that was oppressing him. And that too struck me as perfect! Invisible President. Elders of Zion. The folks who fluoridate the water. Romney-Ryan 2012!

Only a couple of blocks away is the Obama Headquarters. The photo below gives you a good idea of the difference. For one thing, the Democrats were open! And their space looks permanent. If you go inside, there are offices. People are coming and going. There are actual Democrats out registering voters and going door to door. I haven’t seen a single Republican, and I should have because I spend a good part of the day walking around doing my shopping.

Yes, I am a partisan. But not a happy one. In fact, until the Democratic National Convention, I was going to change my registration to Peace & Freedom. So I’m pleased that my local organization is one I can be proud of. The fact that the local Republicans can be mocked is just icing.

Yes, yes, I’ve already written about Mad Kane before. But she deserves at least two articles because she won the Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor, which was presented by Bob Freaking Newhart. This is the coolest thing that has ever happened to anyone I know and I know some pretty cool and famous people. Anyway, as regular readers know, I have many intense if fleeting obsessions.

Mad Kane has a limerick challenge of sorts. I had planned to avoid it, but I happened upon her post that requested a limerick that started (more or less), “A woman was trying her hand.” I liked that because I immediately thought, “A surgeon was sawing her hand.” The comedic potential was too great and my resistance folded like an ironing board that folds particularly well.

But other than thinking that a surgeon sawing her own hand off was hysterical (Everyone loves a good self-torture narrative!) I had nothing. That was when I made my Big Mistake.

“Hand” rhymes with “Sudan” and “Koran.” That had possibilities. After a fair amount of work, I came up with this:

I worked particularly hard on that second line. It was originally, “At a mission in eastern Sudan.” Although this works in hearing, I find it is disrupting in reading. But this probably says more about my poor reading skills than anything. I also changed a number of things so it wouldn’t be offensive. For example, it was originally “zealot” rather than “preacher.” And it sure wasn’t “dear” Bible, originally!

In the end, I was very pleased with it. This is especially the case because it does the one thing I think a limerick should do: pay off in the last line. This is what I have a very hard time doing. Here is a limerick written by Carolyn Henly that really made me laugh:

But you know me: I love silly.

Anyway, it turns out that Mad Kane is Good and True of Heart. That is: she’s as much of a pedant as I am! She noted that “hand” does not rhyme with “Sudan.” Woe is me! Mad Kane was dissing my cherished rhyme! (She has a very thorough discussion of the limerick on her site, including a very clever “how to write a limerick” limerick.)

It seems I am in over my head, which is not that bad. I like the feeling. But as a longtime songwriter, I have gotten to the point where I prefer assonance to rhyme. One of my more recent songs “rhymes” the words “gas,” “dad,” and “match.” So my standards are kind of low. You can imagine what a great limerick you would get using those three words.

So I went back to work and wrote a limerick that talks about what it is:

“Bland” is the operative word here. But I can’t be smart all of the time. (Andrea: do not comment, “Or any of the time.”) To console myself, I am altering my original limerick:

Count yourself lucky the preacher wasn’t from Nantucket!

Polls, polls, polls! Everyone loves polls! Leading up to elections, we get lots of the little suckers. Yet, it seems that most people don’t understand them. Especially the people who report them.

I am here to help, because this just isn’t that complicated.

The issue is the poll’s margin of error. I was just reading an article over at the every good P M Carpenter blog, The NBC/WSJ poll reveals that sometimes a cigar really is a cigar. In it, he states that in a new poll, Obama is beating Romney by 5%, which is larger than the margin of error. (To be fair, Carpenter clearly does understand polls.)

I’m afraid that to most people, the margin of error means too much and too little. The fact that Obama is beating Romney by more than the margin of error does not mean that more people are necessarily planning to vote for him. Just the same, if Obama were beating Romney by less than the margin of error, it would still mean that it was very likely that more people were planning to vote for him.

Most margins of error are reported as 95% confidence intervals. This means that there is a 95% chance that the real number is within the margin of error. It also means that there is a 2.5% chance that the real number is one margin of error lower than this value. And there is a 2.5% chance that it is that much higher.

The NBC/WSJ poll finds that 50% of likely voters support President Obama. There is a 3.3% margin of error. This means there is a 95% chance that Obama’s actual support is between 46.7% and 53.3%. But there is a 2.5% chance that his actual support is less than 46.7% and a 2.5% chance that it is more than 53.3%.

Now let’s suppose that Obama were only ahead of Romney by 1.65% (half the margin of error). This is the one-sigma confidence limit and it indicates 66% certainty rather than 95%. If Romney similarly polled at 48.35% (half the margin of error below Obama), there would be a 66% chance that Obama’s real number was between 48.35% and 51.65%. Plus, there would be a 17% change that Obama’s real number was above 51.65%. And a 17% chance that it was below 48.35%. Thus, there is still an 83% chance that Obama is beating Romney.

The take away here is that being ahead but not by as much as the margin of error is still a very good thing. It doesn’t mean that the two candidates are tied. But just the same, this is statistics and it is possible for any given poll to be way off—even if it is a bigger difference than the margin of error.

Afterword

Polling is very difficult. The math is all fine, but there are all kinds of sampling problems that can make the math irrelevant. The best known example of this is the 1948 Dewey Defeats Truman debacle. The problem was that the polls had been based on telephone surveys when only more affluent (i.e. conservative) people had them. Now, the biggest issue is for polling organizations to figure out what exactly a “likely voter” is. This is why election day polling is so accurate—unless George W. Bush is running.