In today's politics of red-hot debate, of charge and counter charge, facts are fleeting things. They don't stand a chance in our wind tunnel of politics and media where noise and negativity, finger wagging, and focus-group tested accusation rule the day. It's a mess. And it's not worthy of a great nation. We deserve better.
Let's start with the facts.
Fact. Americans are angry, disillusioned and deeply worried about the country. According to a recent CBS-New York Times poll, 64 percent think we're headed in the wrong direction. A Pew study earlier this summer found the country more polarized that at any time in 25 years.
Fact. The campaigns are raising more money, using more media to get more outrageous. Boil it all down and here's what you get: One candidate would gleefully export jobs, the other would secretly march us off a socialist cliff. Really?
Fact. The great miracle of digital media has become the peculiar curse of civic discourse. Amid 955 million Facebook pages, half a billion active websites and endless TV talk, complexity and context get compressed to sound bites, tweets and texts. Quick -- tell us how we can put people to work or solve global warming in 16 seconds, in 140 characters, while you're going up the escalator.
Day after day. On TV. On the stump. Online.
We deserve serious debate driven by real information. Persistent long-term unemployment, debt and deficits, income inequality, education, infrastructure, challenges from abroad and from planet earth -- all of these things are made more urgent by the global moment we're in.
Maybe we could actually put our arms and our brains around some of these -- and compliment instead of insult the intelligence of the American public -- if we started with the facts.
So we're going to give it the college try. Literally.
We've launched Face the Facts USA. One hundred clear, clean, unimpeachable facts leading up to the election.
A sampling.
FACT. The percentage of unemployed workers who were jobless for six months or more was 43.8 percent in 2011, higher than any time since the government started keeping records.
FACT. The biggest holder of federal government debt -- which now exceeds total U.S. economic output -- is not China or Saudi Arabia. It's the U.S. government itself.
FACT. More than 67,000 bridges in America are considered "structurally deficient"-- metaphor for our crumbling infrastructure.
With every fact, we'll link to primary source information, varying perspectives and ideas for solutions. We'll connect to related content, videos and documentaries. We'll provide user 'tools' if you want to get involved or sit around and talk about these issues with your kids (or your parents), find out what's happening in your community or see what the candidates would actually do.
So, 100 FACTS, thoroughly researched and vetted, one per day. From debt and deficits to taxes, jobs, energy, education, infrastructure, health care and national security.
We'll make it engaging, creative and memorable. Don't be surprised if you see a fact animated, treated as a detailed infographic -- or as a spoof of a Hollywood hit.
Led by veteran journalists, supported by a prestigious, bipartisan group of committed Americans, based at The George Washington University, assisted by a dedicated group of graduate and undergraduate students, Face the Facts USA has no agenda other than putting facts first. Providing context. Enabling a fact-driven conversation that is transparent and inclusive. Philanthropically funded, we are sharing our content at no charge to media organizations, civic groups and others.
Our challenges are complex and global. They won't be addressed by campaign ads or fixed by ignorance. And our competiveness, our standing as a superpower, is on the line. If we blow it, well, Greece was a superpower once, too.
So check us out. Learn. Engage. E-mail, tweet or post it on Facebook. Help drive the conversation and engage the debate. Take charge.
But start with the facts.
It's time.
Frank Sesno is Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University and chief executive of Face the Facts USA.
Eliot Van Buskirk: Why Shouldn't Mitt Romney Advertise on Pandora?
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
been there, done that. the debt is i guess interesting fact #11110002043, but making it #1 is not useful except to make your intentions clear.
True or false?
Palin is qualified to be president.
Do you mean "had the qualifications and competencies you would seek in a president?" No, not by a long shot.
"We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals -- and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship."
If politics has gotten ugly, the current leadership of the Republican party deserves the lions share of the blame.
Mr. Norquist has also said.....""I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
So much for the "loyal" opposition. What do you call a person who wants to drown our government in the bathtub? A patriot?
Not in my book.
Is the unemployment rate factoring all people looking for a job?
or
Should unemployment rate be a factor of those people who can reasobably be expected to work.
In scientific terminology the rate applies for only those "at risk".
Individuals who realistically in today's world do not have the skill sets should not scientifically be calculated into the unemployment rate. Many may find this concept and fact hard to accept.
.
What is the unemployment rate?
To get a realistic understanding of unemployment rate; and its causes and solutions, here are the facts (or scientifically speaking the raw data).
There are 2 million (some say 5 million) high skill vacant jobs available.
Over the last decade, the school drop-out rate (children who fail to graduate) is 50%.
Those who go to college, only 50% graduate; mostly with liberal art degrees.
Only 5% graduate with a degree in STEMM field.
The unemployment rate among college graduates is 4%.
A welcome addition to the fray. I'm sorry you don't have the resources to fact-check the MSM "fact-checkers."
Thanks to the students, professors & administrators @ GWU. Also, thanks for your guest-hosting on the Diane Rehm/NPR show.
www.pacenow.org.
This would jump start the economy, by putting an estimated 3 million construction workers back on the job, retro-fitting homes. Lower our trade deficit. And the Fed could even charge the homeowner\community only 3% interest and return the profit to the Treasury, to reduce the public debt and then burn the principal.
Allowing ALL a state's citizens to opt in would broaden the base and fix the current demographic issues. This would be a one-time fix to many pension plans and would begin the process of moving pensions off the bargaining table and into the hands of a public-sector banker.
I would say only liberals care about facts. GOP teabaggers immediately start coming up with a million excuses and I can promise you almost no one actually read the full 20 page report...
I did, and as Krugman would put it, the results are "ironclad". No republican can refute the findings because they are...FACT
HHS and the Medical community needs to create a process that creates multi-user, multi-threaded, realtime interactive-electronic diagnostic and treatment workbooks, using Peter Orszag's “Best Medical Practices” and a smartphone.
Yup that's right IT automation at the national level would save over $1 Trillion a year. Including $700 billion if everyone used "Best Medical Practices", $400 billion in administrative costs, $100 billion in malpractice and $60 billion in waste, fraud and abuse.