STAT ERROR MAKES KRUGMAN "THE GREAT EXAGGERATOR" I'll be writing extensively about Krugman's column yesterday on Ronald Reagan, "The Great Taxer."
pkarchive.org
For the moment, let me just say that it contains a flat-out statistical error that could have been caught by even the most cursory fact-checking -- except that the New York Times has admitted that no one fact-checks Krugman's columns. Krugman writes,
"In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent — but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down."
You can see the Congressional Budget Office estimates for yourself at this link. Scroll down to table 2A, and look in the second panel, titled "Effective Individual Income Tax Rate."
cbo.gov
You will see that all of Krugman’s numbers can be verified in the table, except for the first one. The number cited as 8.2% should really be 8.7%. Krugman pulled the 8.2% number from the wrong column, representing 1979, rather than 1980.
And what do you know. The use of the incorrect number exaggerates the net increase in personal taxes by a factor of 350%. The correct increase is 0.2 percent -- or essentially zero -- but Krugman states it as 0.7 percent, because of the wrong year cited. Funny, isn't it, that somehow all of Krugman’s errors always seem to work in the direction of exaggerating his point.
"Donald L. Luskin" |
