DEMOCRATIC JEC REPORT’S ERRORS ALLOWED TO STAND
No Warning Issued on Over $760 Billion in Errors
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A partisan report issued by the Democratic leadership yesterday contained numerous multibillion dollar factual errors and has not yet been retracted. This failure to publicly acknowledge the obvious errors continues despite the fact that copies of the flawed Democratic Joint Economic Committee (JEC) report, entitled War At Any Price?, were widely circulated to the press. However, a number of these errors have been quietly corrected in the web version of the report on the Democrats’ JEC web site without clearly warning the press and public that the copies of the report already widely distributed contain these mistakes. As ranking members Congressman Jim Saxton and Senator Sam Brownback pointed out yesterday, the numerous factual errors demonstrate that the Democrats’ report was not fact checked and reflect poor quality control procedures. Saxton and Brownback made the following statement on the report today:
“As we pointed out yesterday in calling for its retraction, the Democrats’ report contained many errors. However, today the web version of the report corrects at least 24 multibillion dollar mistakes summing to over $760 billion that appeared in the report as released yesterday. Many of these data were used as part of a prop that was the focus of the Democrats’ leadership press conference yesterday.
“We also have noted that in the rush to score political points, apparently no one bothered to fact check the report. Our statement yesterday seems to have prompted some much-needed fact-checking that should have occurred before the report was released. For example, it is obvious that the report’s estimated budget costs for New Hampshire at $59.4 billion and New York at $1.6 billion cannot both be correct, if either actually is. With all due respect to New Hampshire, New York has a much larger state population and economy, so this result should have raised questions had it been examined at all. Similarly, Vermont’s budget cost of $35.2 billion doesn’t make sense compared to New Jersey’s cost of $4 billion.
“When erroneous information is injected into the public domain, those responsible are obligated to publicly withdraw this information. The Democratic leadership should publicly notify those to whom their report was distributed that it contains numerous errors. In the future, we recommend that the Democrats attach a warning label to their reports stating the following: This politically motivated report may contain erroneous information hazardous to informed decision-making.
“To permit a flawed report to continue to circulate is very questionable. It is now beyond dispute that the report issued yesterday contains many factual errors, and the Democrats should retract it.”
“As we pointed out yesterday in calling for its retraction, the Democrats’ report contained many errors. However, today the web version of the report corrects at least 24 multibillion dollar mistakes summing to over $760 billion that appeared in the report as released yesterday. Many of these data were used as part of a prop that was the focus of the Democrats’ leadership press conference yesterday.
“We also have noted that in the rush to score political points, apparently no one bothered to fact check the report. Our statement yesterday seems to have prompted some much-needed fact-checking that should have occurred before the report was released. For example, it is obvious that the report’s estimated budget costs for New Hampshire at $59.4 billion and New York at $1.6 billion cannot both be correct, if either actually is. With all due respect to New Hampshire, New York has a much larger state population and economy, so this result should have raised questions had it been examined at all. Similarly, Vermont’s budget cost of $35.2 billion doesn’t make sense compared to New Jersey’s cost of $4 billion.
“When erroneous information is injected into the public domain, those responsible are obligated to publicly withdraw this information. The Democratic leadership should publicly notify those to whom their report was distributed that it contains numerous errors. In the future, we recommend that the Democrats attach a warning label to their reports stating the following: This politically motivated report may contain erroneous information hazardous to informed decision-making.
“To permit a flawed report to continue to circulate is very questionable. It is now beyond dispute that the report issued yesterday contains many factual errors, and the Democrats should retract it.”
