Death Spiral!

I have a certain fondness for right-wing hysteria; there's something about how over-the-top, panicky, and non-factual it always is that makes me even more confident in my own beliefs, and at the same time gets my competitive juices flowing. Sure, it can be frustrating, and also daunting, when one sees what sort of hardened opposition one faces, but it can also be a fun time to dispense with. Thus, I give you Fox News' amazingly daft "Death Spiral," as interpreted and commented upon by an enthusiastic e-mail forwarder (spelling and grammar left uncorrected, of course):

Can you believe this ????? Eleven states with more people on welfare than they have employed ??????? The voters are in “La La” land and, of course, the number of states will continue to grow until the bubble bursts



These 11 States now have More People on Welfare than they do Employed!
And Surprise-Surprise!!! Most of these States vote straight democrat ticket every election - living onthe government plantation.

This Just Proves that The Majority of Americans have No Intentions of Making a Better Independent
Life for Themselves and their Families and are content Living on The Tax Payers Dime for Eternity!

Catch all that? Good times. There's a lot of wrong to correct, so once you're done savoring its wild-eyed freak-out style, let's get to business.

First off, let's check the source. If there's one reliable thing about Fox, it is that they are extremely dilligent and consistent with not telling the truth, so you don't even need to debate whether you should fact check what they report - you just do it as a matter of routine. Here's what Fox themselves say regarding the graphic:

The category includes 11 states where private sector workers are outnumbered by people who are dependent on the government. That number would include state workers, and people who are receiving welfare or pension. For example, in California the ratio of “takers versus makers” is bigger than one. If you own a software company that employs 100 people, you’re supporting 139 other people in the state who are on the “takers” list.

I see. Slightly different than, "more people on welfare than they have employed," it would seem. Fox (actually Forbes, who constructed this initially) is using this odd Frankenstein metric where they combine people on public assistance with those employed by public agencies. It's not clear form the wording if they counted local government employees, but I would be surprised if they stopped at the state, and these comments from a Forbes writer indicate that all government employees were included. For the purpose of this curious counting, then, someone like, to take a random example, Ohio Governor John Kasich, would be counted on the "takers" list. Gotcha. Also takers: our entire military. The other interesting wording is comparing "workers" on the privately-employed side and "people" (including, retirees, who are apparently considered welfare now) on the "dependent on the government" side. It would be shifty of them to include children (who, of course, can't yet join the privately-employed side) as part of the "takers" group, but I wouldn't put it past them. I also like how they've put no effort into analyzing why certain states might have more public employees than others.

Let's get back to our animated author, shall we? He says "that the number of states will continue to grow until the bubble bursts," I say: ^{[citation needed]}. I also say: one metaphor at a time. Are we doing the spiral thing, or the bubble thing?

As for "Death Spiral" itself, nothing melodramatic about that, eh Fox News and Forbes? Even though nothing is dying and there isn't anything even vaguely spiral-y about the situation, they've decided to use the most florid, alarmist language possible to dress up their arbitrary metric. Even if A state had 51% of its residents on government support and 49% of them working in the private sector, that does not in any way imply a spiraling-out-of-control situation. There isn't any reason why a state couldn't reach a stable, prosperous equilibrium with 90% of its citizens either not working or in the public sector. I'm not saying that's the balance to shoot for; I'm just saying there isn't anything magical about this arbitrary majority criterion Forbes and Fox have established, especially given the questionable origins of their calculation.

Then we're hit with, "These 11 States now have More People on Welfare than they do Employed!" Yeah yeah, I know, dude, you already said that, and we already went through why it's not even close to being true on several counts. Try to keep up.

Perhaps my favorite part of the forward is, "And Surprise-Surprise!!! Most of these States vote straight democrat ticket every election - living onthe government plantation." Um...did you even look at the map? We have highlighted on this goofy-ass map the following death-spiraling states: Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Ohio, New York, Maine, Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. Looking at the past four Presidential elections (two won by each party), we can classify them as:

Democratic: HI, CA, NY, ME, IL
Swing: NM, OH
Republican: KY, MS, SC, AL

Damn those pesky facts! Seems the "death spiral" is pretty well split along state party lines. And did you, reader, think that the use of the word "plantation" was weird? Me too.

Let's wrap this up with, "This Just Proves that The Majority of Americans have No Intentions of Making a Better Independent Life for Themselves and their Families and are content Living on The Tax Payers Dime for Eternity!"

I've wondered this for many years, and I fear that I will never get a satisfactory answer, but I must press on in my quest for knowledge: what is it with people on the American political Right and their odd usage of capital letters? From the ALL-CAPS hysteria of your typical angry religious e-mailer, to the Camel Caps Favored In Libertarian Screeds Like These, there's this remarkably forceful unwillingness to use proper sentence case.

Also, this remark is stupid. Profoundly stupid. Whoever wrote this should be embarrassed. This weird metric doesn't "prove" (or "Prove") anything. The report says literally, absolutely nothing about the determination of individuals and their families to live meaningful lives. Try to explain to a successful teacher, social worker, retiree, or military man how they're "Living on The Tax Payers Dime," especially when they themselves pay taxes.

If you think that the size and scope of our Federal, state, and local governments, and the programs that are in place to assist people who, for whatever reason, are not working are too broad, too much, too generous, then fine. You're more than free to have and express that viewpoint. But don't bring these ridiculous calculations, facts that are misleading at best, and this "death spiral" nonsense into an adult conversation.