
Fact-checkers: Talking crap in Holland v America - robdoherty2
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/08/fact-checkers
======
w0utert
As a dutchman, I have to comment on this:

>> _In the Dutch electoral system, this can't happen. Two months before the
elections, every political party is expected to submit a detailed budget plan
to a non-partisan agency called the Central Plan Bureau (CPB), which plays a
role similar to the Congressional Budget Office in America. The CPB produces
an analysis of the economic consequences of those budget plans. The effects
are assessed in detail for 2013-2017, and there's also a prognosis for 2040 to
discourage parties from larding up their budgets with short-term candy that
leads to negative long-term consequences._

So, what happens instead, is that all parties write up their budget plan in a
way that they expect will yield the most favorable CPB calculations for their
intended audience. Contrary to most voters, they realize full well that most
of their plans will never be realized, because the Dutch political systems is
built around political coalitions, where multiple parties (typically 2, 3 or
4) have to make compromises. Almost inevitably, this means the sharp edges are
taken off, and typically it's exactly the sharp edges that influence the CPB
calculations the most.

>> _The CPB's report came out Monday, and most parties had their strong and
weak points. Of the two parties most likely to win the elections, the Liberals
did well on deficit-cutting and long-term job creation but hiked income
inequality and hurt household purchasing power; the Socialists did well on
purchasing power and jobs in the short run but had low employment growth in
the long run._

In the mean time, we had our elections, and the resulting coalition comprises
the liberal party (VVD) and the socalist party (PvdA). Together, they
negotiated their plans for the coming 4 years. And guess what: the net effect
of these plans is almost the exact opposite of what the 2 parties have been
advertising during election time.

The liberal party agreed to health care reforms that will actually decrease
income inequality, and will have a huge impact on upper middle class incomes,
up to 10% net income loss. They also agreed to cut tax benefits for home
owners, which again mostly hurts upper middle class incomes. In exchange, the
socialists agreed on labor market reforms that will cut unemployment benefits,
and on housing market reforms that will increase the cost of living for people
who rent, usually people with lower incomes.

The last few weeks there has been a raging debate here, because voters on both
sides feel cheated. People who voted the liberal party feel particularly
cheated, because the current plans hurt them disproportionally, while at the
same time they will destroy jobs, reduce consumer spending, and hence are very
bad for economic growth. The only rationale for these measurements is
redistribution of wealth, which the socialists traded for reducing social
security. All iof this goes against everything the liberal party stands for,
never ever have the liberals even hinted that they would agree with such
measures.

So tl;dr: Even though the unbiased analysis of the plans the different parties
have reduces fact-free policies, it's far from a guarantee that after the
elections, the winning parties will simply make a 180 degree turn and screw
you over anyway.

~~~
danieldk
Small addition: PvdA (one of the two parties in the new government) is the
labor party. The 'socialist party' spoken of in the article is the SP, which
still did well in the polls when the article was written, fell out of favor.

~~~
w0utert
You're right, though projecting to US politics, I think you can safely say
PvdA is socialist (they call themselves social democrats by the way). SP would
be outright communist by US measures ;-)

------
jd
One major point not addressed in the article is that the Dutch media aren't
afraid to call out politicians on their lies. When a politician is caught in a
gross lie the media turn up the heat until the politician publicly apologizes
(or at the least ceases to spread misinformation). Politicians are forced to
answer tough questions whenever they appear on TV and in addition they get
cross-examined during debates. So the blatant dishonesty displayed in the US
election won't work here.

So it's a strong cultural thing. There are no mainstream politicians here who
hold scientifically untenable positions about evolution, global warming,
vaccinations/autism, abortion, and so on. They'd get ridiculed, and rightly
so.

This does not mean that rationality prevails in the Netherlands,
unfortunately. Austerity measures are seen as the obviously responsible thing
to do, even though economists don't agree. As a result we're looking at an
economic recovery significantly worse than the one in the US. The GDP growth
is projected at a meager 1.5% per year until 2017.

~~~
benpbenp
Not meaning to open a "classic flamewar topic", but when you say,

 _scientifically untenable positions about evolution, global warming,
vaccinations/autism, abortion_

What is the scientifically untenable position about abortion? As far as I know
there is no scientific controversy concerning abortion in general, but rather
it is wholly a moral question.

~~~
Luc
> What is the scientifically untenable position about abortion?

The argument that can be summed up as 'life starts at conception'.

~~~
takluyver
Speaking as a biologist, sperm and eggs are alive even before they fuse.
There's no scientifically meaningful way to specify when 'life starts'. So the
question of when a developing foetus should be given the rights of a person is
primarily philosophical.

~~~
Luc
I tried to avoid nitpicking by specifying that it's just a summary of the
argument, but I failed. I should have used the term 'personhood' instead.

------
littlegiantcap
To me, this is the absolutely key phrase in the entire article.

" Some question the usefulness of the economic models the CPB uses, which
(like all economic models) have never successfully predicted what the economy
will do several years down the road."

The problem with any sort of fact checking agency in regards to economics,
while useful, is far from a magic crystal ball. Economics is a pretty vague
sort of thing that straddles the line between between the humanities and hard
science. As a former economics student, I can tell you I've met very brilliant
people who have adamantly disagree with one another, yet both have excellent
insights. It's tough to definitely say that x plan is better than y plan,
because there are so many what if scenarios and assumptions to rely on. That
being said, I find it's generally better to trust whoever has articulated
their plan better. Simply the act of extrapolating out their assumptions means
that while they may be wrong, we can look and see if they've taken into
account the metrics that matter.

~~~
jules
At the _very_ least, the CPB requires that the budget actually adds up
mathematically, something that cannot be said of the things that politicians
proclaim ("everyone will get tax breaks!! we will close the budget by removing
inefficiencies!"). Even though the _prediction_ is not perfect, a group of
experts can still detect outright wrong and misleading policies. In the US if
a politician says "the middle class will get tax breaks!" you don't know if
that actually means anything since another take hike might totally negate a
small tax break. Even though the CPB cannot predict the future accurately, it
can verify such statements by adding up all the proposed tax hikes and breaks
and premiums, and use its statistical model of which policies apply to the
middle class population to come up with a number like "on average a middle
class person will have €56.30 more per month".

For example, check out this graph, which breaks up the effects of the new
government by income level:
[http://static3.volkskrant.nl/static/photo/2012/14/8/6/201211...](http://static3.volkskrant.nl/static/photo/2012/14/8/6/20121108064823/media_xl_1417281.jpg)

The idea that you would do better by listening to the words of politicians on
TV, than a group of experts working on this full time who actually calculate
the effects of all the proposed policies sounds preposterous to me.

------
nollidge
As an American, this:

> there are currently ten parties represented in parliament, four to six of
> which are major contenders.

makes me insane with jealousy. What is it that enables this number of parties
to remain viable? My first guess would be that the voting system is not first-
past-the-post, but I can't find that info after a cursory Wikipedia search.

~~~
ryusage
You're correct. Their voting system uses proportional representation, in which
each party receives a number of seats proportional to the percentage of votes
they received.

Edit:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Netherlands#Pol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Netherlands#Political_parties)

~~~
Someone
In addition, the Netherlands does not have an election threshold. A party that
gets 1/150 of the votes gets one of the 150 seats in parliament.

That is different from, for example, Germany, where seats are proportionally
distributed among parties that got at least 5% of the votes.

So, the theoretical maximum number of parties in parliament is 150 in the
Nethelands, but 20 in Germany.

------
BasicFacts
Paul Ryan was and is the head of the House Budget committee, which under his
leadership proposed a detailed budget that was passed in the US House of
Representatives but failed in the Senate for both of the last two years.
Romney said he supported the Ryan budget. Remarkably, no Democratic Senator
has proposed or voted in favor of any budget whatsoever for the last 3.5
years.

So this "fact-check" seems to invert the truth--the Democrats have given no
details about their plans, while the Republicans have been very specific about
theirs, whether or not you agree with them.

~~~
adamtaylor
A federal budget does not include how you're going to raise the money to pay
for it. The thing that Romney was vague about was which tax loopholes he was
going to close to pay for his budget. No Democratic senator proposed a budget
in the last 3.5 years because their President did that for them, as is
customary (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process>).Also,
only the House has "the power of the purse", i.e. the right to propose
spending bills. And of course Democratic senators voted on budgets during the
last 3.5 years. All spending bills have to pass the Senate. Here is the Senate
roll call for one of the FY 2012 appropriations bills, which passed the Senate
on Nov 1, 2011:
[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_c...](http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00194)
. Note that most Democrats voted "yea", and most Republicans voted "nay".
Also, the article in question was not a "fact-check". It was article about
fact-checking.

~~~
BasicFacts
What I was referring to was the fact that no Democratic Senator has voted for
or proposed a Budget Resolution for the past 3.5 years, which as your
Wikipedia article reference says, is the normal procedure for establishing a
budget after the House passes its Budget Resolution. The House and Senate
budget resolutions are then normally reconciled through a negotiation process
that has not happened because the Senate hasn't passed any such Budget
Resolution.

So since September 2010, to keep the government functioning, Congress has
passed a series of seven continuing resolutions. In their frustration at the
unwillingness of the Democratic Senators to propose a budget resolution, the
Republicans even brought President Obama's proposal up for a vote this last
year, but it went down 0-99 in a rare show of bipartisanship. Admittedly a
stunt, but the point is that Democrats are refusing to negotiate by ordinary
procedures.

The Budget Process is clearly broken, and it's a serious problem for the
economy and country. The non-partisan "No Labels" organization has echoed
Independent former Senator Joe Lieberman in calling for a serious reform of
the budget process.

Also, the blog article in question prominently attacked Rep. Ryan, and said
the Romney-Ryan campaign did not have a budget plan. At least part of it was a
typical partisan hit piece implying "facts" existed where they didn't.

------
stcredzero
I think there should be a "Meta-Pundit" site, which would be somewhat like a
Wikipedia for pundits, but tailored towards specific kinds of relevant
information. There would be a means of entering information on predictions in
the public record and marking these right and wrong. The same could be done
for facts. The social media aspects of this could be augmented with web
crawlers that look for the same data.

~~~
danielweber
You can have _both_ people saying what sounds like opposite things in a
debate, and they are _both_ technically correct.

Fact-checkers are not infallible, either. It's usually someone who doesn't
know the issue at all looking it up on Wikipedia or interviewing an "expert"
with his own biases to get an answer.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/11/05/the-ten-worst-
fa...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/11/05/the-ten-worst-fact-checks-
of-the-2012-election/) is from a conservative viewpoint, so read it with a
grain of salt, but it's should be enough to make you skeptical of the whole
process.

~~~
stcredzero
_You can have both people saying what sounds like opposite things in a debate,
and they are both technically correct._

Yes, but there are enough things that are incontrovertibly right and wrong,
like a lot of pundit predictions of this last election. Even if this were not
the case with anything whatsoever, there is clear value in being able to look
up a pundit and see all of the predictions and statements in one place.

 _Fact-checkers are not infallible, either. It's usually someone who doesn't
know the issue at all looking it up on Wikipedia or interviewing an "expert"
with his own biases to get an answer._

So there would be 3 or 5 grades for predictions and factual/nonsense
statements made by pundits.

------
mynameishere
So, why does the Dutch media care about the US presidential election to this
extent? It would barely effect them, and the population (I'm guessing) is
already firmly convinced of the evils of the Republican party, so...what's the
point?

~~~
Someone
Some/many (I wouldn't know) economists think the fiscal cliff, if handled
incorrectly, will put the world into a recession.

So, the election may affect Dutch economy. Doubly so because the economy of
the Netherlands is highly dependent on foreign trade.
[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/nl.html):

    
    
      - GDP    : $840 billion
    
      - Imports: $492 billion (5.9% from the USA)
    
      - Exports: $550 billion
    

(some economists joke that it isn't necessary to have a Dutch minister of
economics, as there is no way local policy can compensate for the effect of
foreign economies on that of the Netherlands)

------
nitid_name
>Aug 31st 2012

------
Mvandenbergh
"the actual budget of the Dutch government will look nothing like any of the
proposals submitted by the parties"

Understatement of the century.

------
mattmanser
I really don't get this twisted logic:

 _It's impossible for a neutral arbiter to preserve its public legitimacy when
ruling on subjects of partisan dispute in an election if there are only two
disputing parties. Neither side will accept the referee's judgments._

So it works in sports, but doesn't work in politics for some reason?

~~~
nollidge
I think the point is that if there were only two teams _in the league_ it also
wouldn't work in sports.

