1340 AM, Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Fun With Numbers: Fact Checking The Gubernatorial Debate

(BLOOMINGTON) - As promised this morning, a look at the candidate’s claims from last night’s debate, and an examination of just how truthful, or how far off, they were.

Numbers are the biggest thing that can be fact checked in a debate, mostly because they have a tendency not to lie. Sure, you can get after a candidate for saying they supported "X" when they really supported "Y," but there's always room for interpretation in those claims.

When it comes to numbers cited, there's not as much wiggle room.

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels and Democratic Challenger Jill Long Thompson made most of the numerical claims last night, and so those are the ones we will focus most on. Starting with this one:

Jill Long Thompson:

"We've lost 64,000 jobs since last year. Since Governor Daniels has taken office, the unemployment rate has jumped 2 full percentage points. Hoosiers now make $0.87 on the dollar relative to the rest of the country."

This is, in all reality, fun with numbers. Long Thompson was apparently citing the change in employment between July of 2007 and July of 2008 on both accounts, not just her jobs-lost number, but, really, when we use the most current data, not only has unemployment gone up less than she claimed since Daniels was inaugurated, but Indiana has seen a net increase in jobs.

However, those numbers have been on the downward trend since the beginning of this year.

Thompson said during the debate that unemployment has gone up 2.0% and we have lost 64,000 jobs. So far this year, the unemployment number is more or less correct, actually at +1.9%, says the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

However, since Daniels took office, that number sits at +0.8%, which is far short of "two full percentage points."

Thompson also claimed that unemployment is going up in Indiana faster than it is in any other state. Close but no cigar. Unemployment is going up at an alarming rate in Indiana, having jumped 1.9% between August of 2007 and August of 2008.

However, that's not only not the worst in the nation; it's not even the worst in the region. Our western neighbors in the good State of Illinois have seen unemployment jump by 2.1% year over year since August 2007 according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

However, we are still beyond Michigan, Kentucky and Ohio, (at +1.7%, +1.3% and +1.7% respectively, all according to their respective labor departments) and way beyond Wisconsin, which has seen only a +0.2% jump.

Thompson's made the claim that Hoosiers make $0.87 for every dollar the average American makes. However, after doing as much research as I could, I could not find data that would support that.

What information I could find showed that, on the whole, Hoosiers are sitting right about average. The problem with this claim, however, is that the most recent data the IDWD has on their website is from 2006, two years ago.

Whether or not you've noticed, we're in a completely different economic situation than we were in 2006.

Later in the same line of questioning, Daniels made a lofty claim that Indiana balanced her budget with nary a tax increase.

Mitch Daniels:

"We found a state bankrupt four years ago, and times were good, by the way, economically, and most states were flush with cash. And we balanced the books of this state, the budget of this state, without a tax increase."

Not so fast there, honcho.

Taxes have been increased, though whether it will be a net tax increase will be seen here in the next session of the General Assembly.

And, to be even more fair, Daniels did try to raise income taxes shortly after taking office, proposing a 1.0% hike on those making more than $100,000, confirms a report from taxfoundation.org.

However, the General Assembly said "no thank you."

Yes, property taxes got a big slash this year as a result of Daniels' plan and agreement within the General Assembly. However, that was, indeed, accompanied by a similar hike in sales taxes, and whether or not Hoosiers save $1.72 for every $1.00 in new taxes has yet to be seen.

On the whole, though, there's more potential taxes that can come from the property tax slash, mostly county income taxes.

However, to be fair again, that's speculation and dependent on local situations.

This year, local and county governments just took a big hit to their budget because of the property tax plan. Bedford alone will see a 2-year slash of about $2 million dollars according to Mayor Shawna Girgis.

And municipalities have to make that revenue up. And more and more, they're looking to the local-option income tax to do it. That may erase that $0.72 cent supposed advantage entirely.

Plus, there's the cigarette tax which, though all that money did go to health initiatives, is a big difference from "without a tax increase."

I'm sure there were other goofs made in the debate as well. Jill Long Thompson claimed that, during her entire Congressional career, she never voted for an increase in taxes, however, WBIW News at this time does not have the resources to investigate this claim.

Governor Daniels' claim of Hoosiers saving $1.72 for every extra $1.00 in sales tax is a speculative claim that would take an economics department to study, which we don't have available to us.

Finally, Andrew Horning said that during his 2000 campaign for governor, he called for a full-spread 7% cut in the state's budget, yet there's no archive we've been able to find that would confirm this claim one way or the other, though online archives from the Indianapolis Star did show he was for eliminating property tax wholesale during that effort.

The moral of the story is, really, don't take what any candidate says, even during a live, broadcasted debate, at face value.

There will be more falsehoods made by candidates running for just about every office.

But, when it comes to any numerical claim, just do a little research on the internet, especially with all kinds of government departments making their numbers easily available, and you can see just what is really what.