Actuaries Say Bush Can't Eliminate Debt

[David_B]

http://www.sj-r.com/news/00/10/27/b.htm

A few days ago, Rand Corp. said the reality about education in Texas were not up to Bush’s claims. Now the American Academy of Actuaries says his tax cut plan plus his plan for Social Security could make it impossible to eliminate the national debt.

Unfortunately, I suspect that this won’t make much difference in the votes.

[Freedom]

A few days ago, Rand Corp. said the reality about education in Texas were not up to Bush’s claims.

This is not true. Please cite.

[tracer]

From the third paragraph of the article David B posted a link to in the OP:

“The report comes just days after the California-based Rand Corp. said the education gains Bush has trumpeted in Texas were not reflected on nationwide tests.”

[IzzyR]

If you go to the American Academy of Actuaries website at http://www.actuary.org/, they clearly attack both plans. The fact that this news organization could come up with a headline “Actuaries back Gore on Social Security” is misleading and false. Other news organiztions have reported it the same way. Were’s that old “liberal media” thread when we need it…

[Maeglin]

This from http://www.salon.com:

Gore even gets some assistance from an unusual place: the normally conservative Rand Corp.,
which on Monday published a report that scuffs up the sheen of the Texas education record Bush
loves to tout. Bush has previously cited Rand as an independent group that agrees about the
godliness of his work in the Lone Star State. It’s unlikely he will anymore.

“I think the ‘Texas miracle’ is a myth,” Stephen Klein, the senior Rand researcher who helped lead
the study, told Reuters Tuesday. According to the study the gap in average scores between
whites and students of color isn’t closing, as Bush has said, but is actually “very large” and
“increasing.” While the Texas tests show improvements in learning among Texas students beyond
what is shown in national tests – a point pounded home by Bush – Klein concluded that Texas
teachers were preparing their students for the test, but not necessarily teaching them much beyond
how to take a test well.

MR

[Freedom]

In July, RAND released a detailed analysis by David Grissmer and colleagues that compared the NAEP scores of 44 states, including Texas. That study and today’s issue paper are not directly comparable. They differ in scope, focus and data. Grissmer et al. found that Texas ranked high in achievement when comparing children from similar families. Both found at least some gains in the NAEP scores in Texas. Grissmer et al. suggested that the Texas accountability regime, of which TAAS is a part, might be a “plausible” explanation for the state’s NAEP gains, but added that more research is needed before a linkage can be made. What Do Test Scores in Texas Tell Us? represents an important contribution to that research effort. It is also the latest in a continuing series of RAND analyses involving high-stakes testing issues.

Press Room

(from Rands site)

[Gadarene]

*Originally posted by IzzyR *
Where’s that old “liberal media” thread when we need it…

Izzy, we destroyed you in that thread. I stopped responding to you when you stopped making reasonable sense. If I were you, I’d refrain from citing threads which derive conclusions opposite to that which you’re attempting to assert.

[Freedom]

Here are a couple of quotes from Rand about their Detailed analysis. (the one they did BEFORE gore needed to bash Texas)

Math scores are rising across the country at a national average rate of about one percentile point per year, a pace outstripping that of the previous two decades and suggesting that public education reforms are taking hold. Progress is far from uniform, however.** One group of states–led by North Carolina and Texas **and including Michigan, Indiana and Maryland–boasts gains about twice as great as the national average. Another group–including Wyoming, Georgia, Delaware and Utah–shows minuscule gains or none at all. Most states fall in between.

Even more dramatic contrasts emerge in the study’s pathbreaking, cross-state comparison of achievement by students from similar families. Texas heads the class in this ranking with California dead last.

[quote]
Although the two states are close demographic cousins,** Texas students, on average, scored 11 percentile points higher on NAEP math and reading tests than their California counterparts.** In fact, the Texans performed well with respect to most states. On the 4th-grade NAEP math tests in 1996, Texas non-Hispanic white students and black students ranked first compared to their counterparts in other states, while Hispanic students ranked fifth. On the same test, California non-Hispanic white students ranked third from the bottom, black students last, and Hispanic students fourth from the bottom among states.**

[IzzyR]

*Originally posted by Gadarene *
**

*Originally posted by IzzyR *
Where’s that old “liberal media” thread when we need it…

Izzy, we destroyed you in that thread. I stopped responding to you when you stopped making reasonable sense. If I were you, I’d refrain from citing threads which derive conclusions opposite to that which you’re attempting to assert. **

You did nothing of the sort. You played word games, and distorted what I was was saying. You stopped responding when I challenged you to show that I had said the things you claimed I said, and you could not.

Dream on.

[John_Corrado]

The recent Rand report was a 16 page paper that did not receive peer review.

In July, Rand issued a 250-page, peer-reviewed report that praised Texas’ education record (see freedom2’s post). This recent report was one of Rand’s members rebutting that report. In interviews, Klein has admitted that he did not have complete data for Texas schools, and the Texas education department has stated that Klein never asked for such data.

The AAA, as David B cites, did state that Bush’s plan will not reduce the debt. They also, however, stated that Gore’s Social Security plan in no way keeps the system from going bankrupt. In addition, they state that Gore’s spending plans mean that the government will go back to a deficit situation in 2015 in order to keep up payments on Gore’s programs.

Unfortunately, I suspect that this won’t make much difference in the votes.

Because, quite frankly, it’s mixed and murky information. The newest Rand report, especially when compared to the July one, seems a rushed hatchet job released with suspicious timing. The AAA report revealed as many or more flaws in Gore’s plan as it did in Bush’s.

[beagledave]

Interestingly enough, the RAND study released in July covers NAEP scores from 1990-1996…Dubya became Guv in November 1994…kinda tough for Dubya to claim ALL the credit here…

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by Maeglin *
Klein concluded that Texas teachers were preparing their students for the test, but not necessarily teaching them much beyond how to take a test well.

As someone who went to public school in Texas from 1984-91, I’ll vouch that that was very much the case. Everyone knew that teachers spent a great deal of time teaching only what was on the test. I don’t know in retrospect if that is a bad thing, if what is on the test is what is important.

I am still a master a multiple choice, unless the test was written by a equal master. But other than filling in the bubbles all the way, and if all else fails guess “c”, I can’t think of any specifics we were taught in school nor did that take up much time.

I also had a job grading the essay portion of standerd tests. Yes, the criteria of opening para, 3 ideas, conclusion is formulaic but not the only criteria. I don’t think teaching students to write essays in this fashion hurts them in the long run not would I notice such an obvious formulaic in a newspaper etc.

Of course, Bush didn’t get elected until 1994. I suppose things could have gotten to where teachers are spending even more time teaching to the test now but Texan parents pay close attention to this kind of thing and I haven’t heard any complaints by proxy on that issue.

[Necros]

Gad and Maeglin, despite the myth of a rampant, all-over liberal media, please compare these two heds:

From the article link provided by David B:

Actuaries back Gore on Social Security
Bush plan likely to keep nation in debt, group says

From the actual news release:

Bush and Gore Social Security and Medicare Reforms Judged “Incomplete” and “Potentially Misleading”

For another example, please see the contrasting descriptions of Gore’s plan. From the article:

And one expert said Gore’s plan for Medicare does not address looming problems in the national health-care program on which 39 million seniors rely.

From the news release (the subhed, no less):

Gore’s Medicare “Lockbox” Is “Imaginary” Solution

Are you honestly going to sit there and type to me that in this instance, there is no evidence of media bias?

[Pyrex]

Voodoo economics worked for Reagan, as far a getting votes.

[David_B]

Anyone who thinks the newspaper I referenced has a liberal bias simply doesn’t know at all what they’re talking about.

The paper has been consistently conservative. While they have been slowly moving more towards the center, they are still definitely oriented towards the right. If they hold to their previous patterns, at least 80-90% of their endorsements for this election will be Republican.

Springfield, Illinois, is a very Republican town, and the newspaper holds true to the community.

[waterj2]

Then why are they giving the impression that the actuaries group backs Gore’s plan, while the group’s press release doesn’t imply that? This story, at least, seems to be rather biased in favor of Gore.

[Scylla]

Actuaries?

Federal government budgets ain’t there field of expertise.
It might actually mean something had some CPA association said the same thing, or better yet, an association of CFAs (Certified Financial Analysts.)

Actuaries know about as much economic and budgetary forecasting as Dentists know Brain Surgery…

Have the American Postal Workers posted an opinion on the budget yet?

An expert rendering opinions outside his field of expertise is no longer an expert.

[PunditLisa]

Aww, come on, David. I realize that time is running out, but can’t you come up with something better than this?

I recall a moment in the last debate when a single working woman asked (in a Kennedyesque moment), “What will your government do for ME?”

Gore’s reply was something like this: “Thank you for that very intelligent, well-researched question, Miss Jones. Let me tell you what my administration will do for you. If you save $500, the government will match it. If you save $1000, we will match it.”

Huh? Al, Why not pull a wad of cash our of your pocket and just hand it to her, you’re soooo desperate for her vote. Funny, for all the statistics he spewed that night, he conveniently didn’t tell us how much THAT little program would run the federal government.

Hell, Al would promise to HAND DELIVER prescription drugs for seniors if he thought it would earn him a vote. And he’d gleefully bankrupt the U.S. government if he thought he could finally be addressed as “Mister President.”

[hawthorne]

Seeing as no-one else has said it I will: paying off your entire national debt would be a dumb thing to do anyway. To the extent that the US faces future fiscal problems they have nothing to do with current debt as such and everything to do with unfunded liabilties of demographically sensitive social security programmes. The spectre of a debt crisis - whether or not it was exaggerated - is long gone. The level of public debt is quite sustainable and to have the current generation pay off the entire debt rather than leave some bills as well as some infrastructure for future generations is pretty hard to justify.

It is possible to argue that Gore’s plan involves allowing spending programmes to grow unchecked. It is possible to argue that Bush plans to provoke another round of pruning of programmes by deliberately overcutting taxes. But it is foolish to imagine either that any government will entirely pay off the debt or that anything good would happen if they did.

picmr

[beakerxf]

*Originally posted by PunditLisa *
Funny, for all the statistics he spewed that night, he conveniently didn’t tell us how much THAT little program would run the federal government.

To be fair, Bush has some explaining to do as well. He plans an across the board tax cut and will eliminate the Estate tax. So what programs does Bush plan to cut to offset the reduction in tax funds?