Cris Barrish’s Journalistic Malpractice of the Day
It is either terrible reporting by Barrish, or a sign of how completely fucked we are – but in this lengthy story about the state budget, there was no mention of the fact that Delaware’s wealthiest individuals and corporations are paying ridiculously low taxes.
Only this crumb hints at the notion that there is a revenue side to the budget:
Markell told The News Journal he doesn’t want to raise income taxes to generate money like he did two years ago, while encouraging businesses to relocate here or expand.
Naturally, plenty of ink was spent sticking a boot in Carolann Wicks’ ass, and describing “Cadillac” benefits enjoyed by Delaware’s lazy teachers. Barrish also manages to find time to get a quote from Tea Party genius, Evan Queitsch, so there is that.
The bottom line is that saying we are broke is a lie. We simply don’t have the political will to ask everyone to pay their fair share.
Barrish is an excellent reporter, perhaps the News-Journal’s best, but there was a glaring weakness in this story: The story is based on the meme that the only way to fix our budget deficit is to balance it on the backs of state workers.
Putting in the anecdotal quote about Carolanne Wicks is journalistic malpractice. I’m all for cutting the insane pensions that the fortunate few get, not to mention the multiple pensions that ne’er-do-wells like Tom Sharp get (legislative, New Castle County Vo-Tech District, and Labor Secretary), but to cite the .1% as an example of what 99.9% of all state pensioners receive is intellectually dishonest.
And, um, where, WHERE, were any alternative solutions to addressing the deficit like, say, I don’t know, TAXING DELAWARE’S WEALTHIEST?
Barrish simply reported the story based on the parameters on which the Markell Administration wanted it reported.
I’m starting to wonder if Jack Markell isn’t merely a more amiable version of Chris Christie.
It is time, for once, for the Delaware General Assembly to assume its role as one of the three branches of government and act as a co-equal to the Governor. If the members don’t, then they shouldn’t expect to be given a free pass (nor will they) from the electorate, many of whom are figuring out just how rigged this game is.
I looked for same and found the absence troubling.
I don’t know why?
After all, it’s the News Journal.
The more I think about it, were I a legislator (a terrifying thought indeed), I’d introduce legislation limiting any state employee to one pension.
This would likely eliminate the revolving door from the state police to the General Assembly, and would prevent abuses like the Tom Sharp example from taking place. Not to mention Tony Bleeping DeLuca. Unless, of course, they were truly in it for the public service and not for the bloated pensions.
Multiple pensions reflect a corruption and gaming of the system. There should be some way to reform that system.
I read this and there is plenty here that is not quite complete, as in a reminder that Delaware’s pensions are currently fully funded, then providing some context in which the State thinks that a fully funded plan is in some crisis. Because it looks from here that the crisis is in two places:
1. An unwillingness to match the level of state services to the revenues at hand. Revenues that are apparently not an option for increasing (except, of course, via state worker income cuts) but are supposed to maintain the level of services that folks want.
2. Health care. *This* is genuinely the crisis narrative (not just for state workers), and this is the crisis narrative for the Feds too. But the focus on trying to reduce the state’s participation in the pension fund is probably a good way of avoiding this conversation too.
I don’t have a problem with some pension reform — overtime should not be part of the calculation, really, and I still think that all electeds and political appointees should NOT be in the pension plan — but asking state workers for what you won’t ask all Delawareans to do is not exactly kosher.
I’d introduce legislation limiting any state employee to one pension.
Cosigning this. Changing the Leg Hall incentives over pensions needs to happen, pronto.
Barrish is an excellent reporter, perhaps the News-Journal’s best,…stenographer.
He could not find one stinking person in the state to mention the revenue side of the budget, but manages to treat a crazy teabag like the font of budgetary wisdom.
Barrish is just doing what they do — instead of going deep into policy and numbers, just pawn off other people’s resentments as some kind of analysis. It is a shame, really. This is an important topic and the conversation ought to have much better fuel than this.
Whether your a journalist or politician, casually kicking state workers in the balls allows everyone to stay in their comfort zone.
Cris (no H) is an excellent reporter, but budgetary analysis isn’t in his wheelhouse. Whoever edited the story is equally to blame for its failure to address the gaps.
I just saw the Dead Tree Edition, and this is front page, above the fold. You’d think that and excellent journalist would have put a little more effort into it. Wait a second. This is Gannett. Never mind.
I wish someone would do an analysis of how much money is saved by the state in providing pensions and health insurance to retired state employees. Older people can require many services that the state must provide if the older persons don’t have adequate income. The savings might not outnumber the costs, but it seems to me that the savings should be part of the picture in determining how sustainable and desirable the current pension and benefits packages are for state employees.
Regarding the pensions of state employees, it is one of the primary reasons why professionals remain with the state when they could make far more money in the private sector.
I know many people who keep turning down offers from consultants but they remain working for the state, because of the pension.
Plus, it’s time to put to bed the fallacy that state workers earn more than those in the private sector. It’s flat out incorrect. Myself, for example; My pay is about half of what I would earn if I worked for a PR agency.
Rant over.
Good post, Jason.
If you havent heard Michael Moores speech yesterday in Madison, you should. America is not broke! All our money is in the hands of 400 people which equals 155,000,000 americans! The banksters have it all. They have all the cash, stock, assets of this country while they and the national embedded media repeat the lies of corporate america. Its time to demand Jack Markell tell the citizens of Delaware how many corporations in this state have not paid their taxes? Surely he knows that, or the State Treasurer should! Why arent our good legislators asking that question? I have seen information stating that corporations if they paid at all have only come up with 2%. Its time to name the corporations who are in default of their taxes, and make them pony up.
Would that Barrish have consulted the Internets:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/the-truth-about-pensions/
Dean Baker’s analysis has been available for some time now:
Most of the pension shortfall … is attributable to the plunge in the stock market in the years 2007-2009. If pension funds had earned returns just equal to the interest rate on 30-year Treasury bonds in the three years since 2007, their assets would be more than $850 billion greater than they are today.
The total shortfall for the pension funds is less than 0.2 percent of projected gross state product over the next 30 years for most states. Even in the cases of the states with the largest shortfalls, the gap is less than 0.5 percent of projected state product.
It is also worth noting that some of this shortfall has likely already disappeared as a result of the recent rise in the stock market. If this rise is not subsequently reversed, then a substantial portion of the funding shortfall has already been eliminated.
As Belinsky accurately points out the stock markets recent recovery has lessened and continues to lessen shortfalls. Please note that Delaware’s pension fund is 96% fully funded and also please note the years of reference that the reporter is using. Most economist would calculate the range of contribution growth amortized over five years to get a fair assessment for comparison. You may ask why then are the numbers drafted from 2001-2002 when the market was at its peak performance (hence a smaller state share to keep adequate funding levels in 2001-2002) and used to calculate a percentage increase with 2011 (11 years later) except perhaps to ensure a grossly exaggerated percentage increase that misrepresents and misleads the public. Also of note is the fact that Delaware’s Pension benefit level is calculated at 1.85% of pay per year while 60% of large plans use 2% or more.
Some of the discrepancies and exaggerations in today’s News Journal should have been apparent to an impartial and fair accounting but I find the juxtaposition of the average State salary of $40,700 with the $50,000 salary used to calculate a “typical” pension an offensive manipulation of facts since the “average pension” for a Delaware State Employee (all included) as of 6/30/10 was $19,489. You don’t have to be a math major to appreciate that there are many pensions much lower than that,(hardly a bloated windfall).
This type of haphazard reporting, rife with convenient omissions of fact and a slanted view of the remaining facts can be construed as an attempt to influence, not inform, the average reader and is not honorable journalism.
Even the obviously tainted view of a tea-partier leader talking of the costs of the so called “cadillac” plan fails to add in the additional costs to employees of co=pays and deductibles. My own recent prescription was paid a state share of %39.00 while my share was an additional $45.00. My sons monthly Rx’s cost of $65.00 (his share) hardly reflects a free ride in that Cadillac. Perhaps the article and the number projections should reflect the greed of the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical industries (how about another couple of million Astra-Zeneca) and not dwell on the fabricated life of luxury enjoyed by your typical State employee.
Here are some real numbers for you Evan Queitesch.
Today a $30,000 per year State of Delaware employee pays 7.4% of his gross pay ($2216.00) toward his family health care plan, not counting deductibles and co-pays (eg. $25.00 for specialist visits-hope the kids stay healthy)and an additional $810.00 toward his/her pension, (that is over 10% of his/her gross) And believe this incontrovertible truth he/she is not going to get $29,000 per year in pension, not even $19,489 per year (average) but the princely sum of (using the Barrish calculator) $17,400 per year. If his/her home hasn’t yet been foreclosed on let’s hope the mortgage payments are really low when he/she retires.
Additionally $30,000 per year is no where near the smallest full time salary but in many cases the $30,000 a year worker may have a Bachelor’s degree and in some cases a Master’s.
A little more “clarity” and reporting of facts as opposed to conjecture and exaggerations would serve to inform the public more honestly.
John Kowalko
Some great thoughts in this thread, and thanks to John Kowalko for setting us straight on the health and pension benefits of “average” state employees.
That said, it should be apparent that we’ve got some problems with state benefits that need fixing, starting with the preferential benefits treatment given married couples working for the state, as well inclusion of overtime earnings in the calculation of pension benefits.
State employees don’t help themselves with their laments. Mr. Westoff, admired by most who post here, would better serve his interests if he could show us the private sector job offer that would double his state pay. Curious, isn’t it, that a News Journal editor should quit her private sector job so she could do PR for the state Department of Education?
One other point that the state employees often seem to miss: while they contend that they’re victimized by the “class warfare” with the middle-class private sector that’s set up as a false choice by the Rethugs, the reality is that there are a lot of middle-class people who are hurting, thanks to reduced hours, increased insurance costs, etc. State employees may have a point when comparing themselves with those in the private sector who haven’t had their hours or benefits cut, but many in the private sector have endured furloughs and benefit reductions that far exceed anything state employees have experienced.
Barrish — and his editors — absolutely missed what should have been a key theme of this story: the need to address the revenue side of the equation. Raise the tax rate by 1 percent at $100,000, another 1 percent at $200,000 and right on up the line, with a cap at, say, 10-12 percent, and we’ll be on our way to solving a good piece of the budget problem.
Anyone who neglects to make tax increases on those with the ability to pay part of the solution is merely adding to the problem.
“Curious, isn’t it, that a News Journal editor should quit her private sector job so she could do PR for the state Department of Education?” Not really. The NJ is getting its more and more reporting from Arlington
Sad to say, but News-Journal reporters quit not so much for the $$’s, but for the job security.
If they haven’t already been laid off.
the reality is that there are a lot of middle-class people who are hurting, thanks to reduced hours, increased insurance costs, etc. State employees may have a point when comparing themselves with those in the private sector who haven’t had their hours or benefits cut, but many in the private sector have endured furloughs and benefit reductions that far exceed anything state employees have experienced.
While this is absolutely true, the reason why private sector workers are taking such a big hit is to make sure that owners and shareholders (and sometimes customers) don’t have to. (People at the NJ know this *first hand*.) Remember all of the talk about all of the corporate money being on the sidelines? That is from many of those companies looking for givebacks. Givebacks meant to make the bottom line look healthier — while no one discusses the fact that those who are left are producing about as much as before. The benefits of that additional productivity do not redound to the person who made those productivity achievements, right? As far as the government goes, it seems clear to me that asking people to take a pay cut because taxpayers don’t want to pay more in taxes is just as bad. If taxpayers don’t want to pay more, that seems fine, but then decrease the services that are rendered to match the revenues that you are taking in.
From dkos.
Which is exactly right. Although mediawatch’s point about the private sector taking various cutbacks predates the current crash. The current crash made sure that way more folks felt the pain.
The fundamental principle of ‘free markets’ is not a meme, it is a widely held belief that competition, risk-taking, innovative ideas, hard work and entrepreneurial spirit are at the heart of our capitalistic society.
We have ‘safety nets’ throughout our society for those who are unable to make do for themselves. But simply trying to offer equal outcomes for inequal outputs does nothing but create an entitlement society. After all, it’s our money, not the governments’.
Wealth redistribution is not part of the main fabric of our founding principles; it is precisely why we are not Western Europe. Thank goodness!
Are you having fun with your straw men?
“The story is based on the meme that the only way to fix our budget deficit is to balance it on the backs of state workers.”
Straw man indeed.
Free markets exist where there are no subsidies for doing business. Which means we don’t have that yet. Which means that the current scheme of subsidizing business is wealth redistribution from most working Americans to the wealthiest Americans.
“It is precisely why we are not Western Europe.”
I would trade the American standard of living in a second for the standard of living enjoyed by many western Europeans, particularly the standard of living enjoyed by citizens in the social democracies in Scandanavia. Those systems PROVE that the American system is by contrast a failure in providing a good quality of life to its citizens. And guess how they.do it: through progressive taxation, strong unionization, and a social welfare orientation.
A meme is still a meme even if it’s a “widely held belief.” You filled your comment with several more, every one of them backed up by nothing but belief.
A meme can also be fact-based, but in fact none of those you mentioned is. In point of fact, no liberal claims to want “equal outcomes for unequal outputs,” or an “entitlement society.” Conservatives love to claim that “competition, risk-taking, innovative ideas, hard work and entrepreneurial spirit are at the heart of our capitalistic society,” but in point of fact free markets are not necessary for capitalism, and indeed our markets are far from free. And there’s no lie sillier than “it’s our money, not the government’s.” Check your currency again, sport — if not backed by the government, it would be purt’ near worthless.
The God you thanked is also a meme that is backed up by nothing but belief.
“Additionally $30,000 per year is no where near the smallest full time salary but in many cases the $30,000 a year worker may have a Bachelor’s degree and in some cases a Master’s.
A little more “clarity” and reporting of facts as opposed to conjecture and exaggerations would serve to inform the public more honestly.”
$30k is not the avereage. Any reporter using only the low or high end of a group of people’s salary would be discredited immediately. Thus, median or average figures are always used.
Moreover, I would be fascinated to see the number of state employees who average $30k per year gross salary with a Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree. What is there like 17 people total that fall under that umbrella? And do those individuals work more than 25 to 30 hours per/wk?
I mean, I made about $30k in 1984 with a then H.S. education. Talk about hyperbole, ‘conjecture, exaggeration’ and skewing reality.
“I would trade the American standard of living in a second for the standard of living enjoyed by many western Europeans,…”
You should move there then, b/c the U.S. doesn’t like exceedingly high taxes and services in return for a nanny state. Plus, the U.S. has over 300 million citizens and Scandinavian countries have the equivalent of the population of NY State.
“Free markets exist where there are no subsidies for doing business.”
Says who? Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Hayek, et al? Whether one likes it or hates it, some form of subsidies will always exist in free markets. I’d rather be dirt-poor with less-than-a-high-school-education and live in a free market, capitalistic society than to have a master’s degree and wealth and live in a country where Western-European style democratic socialism exists.
Yep. Scandinavian Socialist hell holes. Fuck that. ‘Merica #1 !!
John K does not claim that $30K is not the average. But asking the Party of Business to be better fluent in numbers is a fools game.
And Adam Smith was a known critic of government subsidies on trade especially — they were called bounties when he was writing, but Smith was widely not liked by the Party of Business for his stance *against* trade subsidies.
But there is still no free market where your government subsidizes that market. By definition.
“I would be fascinated to see the number of state employees who average $30k per year gross salary with a Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree. What is there like 17 people total that fall under that umbrella?”
At least several hundred, and probably more than 1,000. Virtually every social worker and many of the health-care system workers, for example.
“Whether one likes it or hates it, some form of subsidies will always exist in free markets.”
What grade did you get in economics again? It’s true that there’s no such thing as an absolutely free market, but our system is nowhere close.
“I’d rather be dirt-poor with less-than-a-high-school-education and live in a free market, capitalistic society than to have a master’s degree and wealth and live in a country where Western-European style democratic socialism exists.”
That’s nice, but it’s not about you. Just because you’re an easily deluded fool is no reason the majority should have to suffer.
“…where your government subsidizes that market.”
Talk about having anathema to one America. ‘your!’…really?
That’s it? That’s all you got after pointing out how wrong you are AGAIN?
I’ll take that as a stipulation that I’m correct, then.