Clinton, Dole Most Similar In Routine Misuse Of Statistics

Voters beware: The campaign season is in full bloom, and falsities and hyperbole abound. They do every election, but this year has been particularly notable.

“What makes this year different is almost routine misuse of statistical data,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication.”It creates the illusion that the rhetoric is being evidence-driven and highly specific when in fact the evidence doesn’t sustain the claims in the way the candidates would suggest.

“The second thing important this year is that when they are caught by the press they don’t correct.”

Bob Dole, for example, pillories the Clinton administration’s ethics, stressing that the administration has been the subject of four investigations by independent counsels.

But while the administration has had its share of problems, it still has a long way to go to reach the nine independent-counsel probes associated with President Reagan’s administration. Iran-Contra, housing department influence-peddling and two probes of then-Attorney General Edwin Meese were just a few.

President Clinton, for his part, continues to tell voters that the “Dole-Gingrich” Congress voted to cut Medicare by $270 billion, even though he has been chastised for the claim repeatedly.

The GOP never proposed cutting Medicare spending from its current levels, but rather to limit its growth more than past budgets had projected. In fact, the Republican plan would have increased spending about 7 percent.

In their most recent budget proposals, Dole favored saving $158 billion by reducing Medicare’s growth over six years while Clinton would save $124 billion by reducing growth over the same period.

A look at some other favorite claims by the candidates:

Hospital closings

Clinton likes to say that the American Hospital Association has estimated 700 hospital “could have closed” under the GOP budget cuts. The association twice called the White House this month to complain that Clinton was misusing its statistics.

In fact, the group says it identified 700 hospital that would be hardest hit by the GOP plans but only some would have been forced to consider closing.

Biggest tax increase

Dole continues to blame Clinton for the “biggest tax increase in history” in 1993 even though it has frequently been pointed out that the claim isn’t true when the figures are adjusted for inflation.

With that adjustment, the largest U.S. tax increase since World War II came in 1982 under Reagan. And it was written principally by Dole, then chairmen of the Senate Finance Committee.

Using 1993 dollars as a measure, Dole’s 1982 tax increase cost $260 billion over five years. Clinton in 1993 proposed $266 billion in tax increases over five years, but congressional negotiators cut that to about $241 billion.

100,000 cops

Clinton repeatedly boasts that “we’re putting 100,000 officers on the streets.” In the 1994 crime bill, Congress authorized 100,000 new officers by the year 2000.

So far, 20,000 of those officers are on the streets, according to the Justice Department. The administration says it has provided financing for all 44,000 of the positions for which Congress appropriated money.

Worst economy

Dole frequently tells voters that the economy under Clinton is in woeful shape. In his last debate, he went even further by saying it was “the worst economy in a century.” Not even close. Aides later said Dole probably meant to say “productivity growth” was the lowest in more than a century.

Under Clinton, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 2.7 percent, about twice that of the Bush years but below the 3.0 percent pace during the Reagan presidency, according to the Commerce Department.

The single-worst year for the economy since Commerce began keeping records was 1982, during the recession of the early Reagan years when the economy shrunk by 2.1 percent.

Drug czar

Clinton and Dole both fail to mention important facts when they use the White House drug control office as a political symbol.

Clinton showcases his appointment this year of a former general, Barry McCaffrey, to head the office. But in 1993, Clinton slashed the size of the office by about four-fifths as part of his effort to reduce White House staff by 25 percent.

Dole criticizes the president daily for those cuts, saying it is proof the president has been “AWOL during the war on drugs.” But as a senator, Dole voted against creation of the drug czar’s office during the Reagan administration.

Family leave

Clinton repeatedly declares that 12 million Americans are taking advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act he signed into law.

It is true that about 12 million of the 14.5 million people who took leave from work in the first 18 months of the law were covered by the law. However, most would have gotten the leave anyway under pre-existing company policies.

A congressionally mandated commission reported in May that 1.5 million to 3 million Americans - less than 4 percent of those eligible - actually took leave because of the law during its first 18 months.

Bankruptcies

Dole frequently blames the Clinton administration for a record number of bankruptcies, with the country on track to surpass 1 million this year for the first time.

However, bankruptcy filings had their largest gains during the Reagan and Bush years. Between 1985 and 1993, bankruptcy filings tripled to more than 900,000.

The increase toward the million mark since then is due not so much to worsening economic conditions but to a law Clinton signed and Republicans supported in 1994 that made it easier to declare bankruptcy.

Legislative accomplishments

Clinton frequently lists among his accomplishments several laws that were the work of the GOP-controlled Congress.

For example, he often takes credit for the legislation that ensures 25 million Americans still can buy health insurance when they change or lose jobs even if they or family members have pre-existing ailments.

Clinton signed the law this summer. But early in his administration, he had threatened to veto just such a measure as inadequate, unsuccessfully urging Congress to enact the administration’s much broader health-care overhaul plan.