… then you must be referring to communist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, according to Grant Phillips:

Senator Bernie Sanders recently published an op-ed in the Huffington Post where he makes numerous claims about the economy. In typical leftist political theater, his narratives are either grossly misrepresented or outright lies, nor does he include a single citation for his wild claims.

From “stagnant middle class” and “income inequality” to “child poverty” and “evil corporations”, his analysis employs one step thinking and over-generalization to draw incomplete conclusions. I will directly address some of his specific claims.

Income inequality is one of today’s most popular economic myths derived from the misconception that wealth and income are fixed pies. Sanders makes the usual claim of the “1%” having a disproportionate amount of both.

Economic inequality is largely overstated through aggregate statistics, nor is there a connection between inequality levels and overall economic well-being.

In a paper for Columbia University, economists Emmanuel Saez and Wojciech Kopczuk analyzed wealth shares from 1916 to 2000 using more inclusive and exact definitions of income and wealth. They found that “there has been a sharp reduction in wealth concentration throughout the 20^thcentury”. Around the 1920s, the top 1% held about 40% of wealth, but that has remained about 20% in the last few decades. Saez, who worked with Thomas Piketty at one point, postulates that, in 2004, the top 1% held about 18% of total wealth, which is a historic low.

Robert Haig and Henry Simons developed the Haig-Simon metric. Their measurement includes: wages/salaries, transfer payments (such as employer insurance), gifts of inheritance, income in-kind, and net increases in the real value of assets.

In a 2013 paper, economists found that Haigs-Simon is an attractive standard for calculating wealth and income because of its inclusive definition. By employing Haigs-Simon, observed growth of income inequality within tax brackets is dramatically reduced.

Based on the inclusive metric, top income shares have not significantly increased in the last 20 years, and most income growth has been in the bottom 80% of earners. Also, by incorporating accrued capital gains and not just IRS-realized capital gains, economic inequality quickly dissipates.

Leftists such as Sanders often cite the Gini Coefficient, which is the measure of a country’s inequality. The United States ranks next to African countries, while egalitarian Norway ranks next to Afghanistan. The Gini Coefficient might measure inequality to a degree, but, if anything, it proves that income inequality is not associated with economic well-being.

Bernie Sanders must not care to read further. Instead, he bases his claim off incomplete data by adjusting the CPI for inflation, which overstates it, and then excludes fringe benefits, which havedoubled since 1970. Why would you when pandering to the base is more profitable?

“Income inequality” is expectedly followed by claims of a “shrinking middle class”. In reality, however, the middle class has “shrunk” upwards to higher incomes.

According to Census Bureau data compiled by the American Enterprise Institution, 61% of families qualified as middle-class income in 1967. They define “middle class” as $25K to $75K per family per year. In the same year, upper-income families, or over $75K, only made up about 16% of families.

Fast forward to 2009 and things have dramatically changed. We have 43% of families in middle class incomes and 38% of families in the upper class. It’s also worth mentioning that lower incomes declined from 22.8% to 17% in that same time period.

A well-respected paper published by NBER further illustrates the increasing wealth and income going to the middle class. According to their findings: “using our broadest measure of available resources – post-tax, post-transfer size-adjusted household income – median income growth of individual Americans improved to 36.7% from 1979 to 2007”.

In other words, by expanding the definition of “income” and “wealth”, much like in the Haig-Simon metric, the narrative changes dramatically. Such a narrative, however, doesn’t make for vote-inducing rhetoric.

Sanders also claims that alongside the “decline of middle class”, there has been a decline in overall economic mobility. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A recent study published by Harvard measures the long run trend of economic mobility over the last twenty years, which has been difficult to accomplish due to data constraints. Michigan State economist Gary Solon said the Harvard study is the most comprehensive and in-depth research on the subject.

According to their findings, “percentile rank-based measures of intergenerational mobility have remained extreme stable”. They even address income inequality and note that the “top 1% income shares are not strongly associated with mobility”. Measures of social mobility have remained stable in the second half of the 20^th century. The rungs on the ladder have grown further apart (wealth and income have increased), but the chances of climbing the ladder have not changed.

In Sanders’s own words, “children go hungry every day”. We have another misrepresentation of reality.

According to a USDA survey, only 3% of Americans do not have enough food to eat or express concern over their next meal. Interestingly enough, 93% of people living in low-income areas reported taking a car to the grocery store, either as driver of passenger. That, however, does not coincide with the Senator’s narrative.

“Child poverty” is grossly inflated by how it is defined. In 2013, the income threshold for public school lunch programs was $43,567 for a four person family, or 185% above the poverty line. Sanders claims that “children go hungry” when they only appear to be going hungry simply because their families qualify for lunch programs. The details in a Southern Education Foundation study note that the $43,567 income level is used to measure “child poverty” in public schools, thus grossly embellishing the Senator’s rhetoric.

From Bernie Sanders’s article, he finds it “absurd” that, in 1952, corporate taxes were 32% of federal revenue and, in 2013, are only 11%. This, however, only states the share of revenue from corporations and has nothing to do with the actual corporate tax rate. During that time, federal revenue has obviously increased.

By digging further, the amount of corporate tax revenue has increased 46.5% during that time – from $186B to $273B (2013 USD; adjusted for inflation). Furthermore, by imposing such a high rate, the U.S. is really encouraging money to leave for more financially appealing countries. In fact, the worldwide corporate tax system forces corporations to pay twice – first to a foreign country and second to the IRS. If Bernie Sanders wants money to stay home, he should reduce the corporate tax rate and simplify the tax code.

Sanders makes other unsubstantiated claims. He slams student loan practices despite most of it being held by the federal government. He repeats the minimum wage narrative of “fixing poverty” with no regard for the voluminous empirical evidence to the contrary. He fears “seniors cannot afford their medication” when seniors are fourteen times wealthier than the younger generation. He claims the rich don’t pay their “fair share” when, according to the CBO, the highest quintile of income earners pay almost 70% of federal taxes.

Much like Elizabeth Warren, who I have also debunked in the past, Senator Bernie Sanders perpetuates numerous economic myths that are wholly disingenuous. Although observable on the surface, a more in-depth analysis provides substantial evidence that these supposed victimized groups have benefited from economic growth.

Apparently Sanders has an insufficiently zealous voting record against guns, though he denies he is insufficiently in favor of gun control. Perhaps Sanders deserves credit for representing his constituents instead of his ideological fellow travelers on this one issue.

There also are those who laud Sanders for being honest about his wacky lefty political worldview. Apparently either our politics or our culture has degraded so much that a politician who tells (his version of) the truth, though he is wrong on nearly every issue, deserves praise.

No one conveys a tone of patrician disgust quite like George Will:

America’s loopy Left is enamored of someone who becomes cranky about bobblehead figurines. Sober Democrats are queasy about nominating Hillary Clinton, who has much to apologize for but no aptitude for apologies. Those Republicans who hope she is denied the nomination are perhaps imprudent. And even Republicans who recoil from Donald Trump’s repulsiveness might want to defer the delicious pleasure of witnessing his apoplexy when he joins, as surely he will, the ranks of those he most despises — “losers.”

In 2011, Bernie Sanders said “we’ve got some very, very serious problems” because the Founding Fathers bobbleheads sold at the Smithsonian Museum of American History were made in China. He exclaimed: “A museum owned by the people of America — a museum which talks about our own history — cannot even have products manufactured in the United States by American workers?” In a hilarious video assembled by the high-spirited folks at Reason.TV, Sanders summons Smithsonian officials to his office to grovel and promise to mend their ways. Sanders’ wrath did not produce a complete purge: The museum still sells imported gimcracks.

Clinton, who could lose to Sanders, might actually think she apologized concerning her private e-mail server. What she said (really: parse her ABC interview) was that she should have been clearer and quicker in explaining why she has nothing to apologize for. Joe Biden may be one of those knickknacks that look better in the store window than in your living room, but he probably would be a stronger nominee than Clinton, whose campaign operatives believe, oxymoronically, that she should adopt a policy of spontaneity. Some operatives thought it shrewd to share this calculation with the New York Times, which headlined its scoop “Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say.” (The Onion’s take: “Campaign Staffers Making Progress Conditioning Hillary Clinton to Replicate Emotions.”)

Trump believes he should be president because of his business savvy. But he has, in effect, shrunk the large inheritance he received from his father. In 1982, Forbes reported Trump’s net worth at $200 million. Vox calculates that if he had put that in an index fund “at a 0.15 percent fee, he’d have $6.3 billion today after dividend taxes, almost certainly more than he actually does.” And an AP analysis showed that if in 1988 he had put his money in an index fund he would have $13 billion. (He has not really revealed his net worth, but any Trump reticence is as welcome as it is rare.)

Only Trump is thinking transgressively, which the intelligentsia encourages us to do. Sanders just wants a lot more of wealth redistributions. Clinton wants a bit less than a lot more. Trump, however, has made something novel discussible: He proposes turning America into a police state in order to facilitate ethnic cleansing.

When asked whether the forced deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants — almost as many people as passed through Ellis Island in 60 years — might take five or even ten years, Trump scoffed: “Really good management” will get this done in at most two years. To meet a two-year deadline, his “management” wizardry will have to quickly produce a network of informers to assist at least 100,000 new law enforcement officers equipped with battering rams and bloodhounds.

Some Republicans think such ideas are not altogether helpful to their party’s attempt to present a pleasant face to temperate voters who are fond of civil liberties. However, some Republicans also worry that if Trump’s inevitable collapse comes too soon, his supporters might move en masse to Ted Cruz before the “SEC primary” of Southern states on March 1. On that day, there and elsewhere, at least 704 delegates will be chosen, more than five times the 133 allocated by February’s four events (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada). Some Republicans say Cruz has a real if narrow path to the nomination, but no plausible path to 270 electoral votes. As the nominee, Cruz would, these Republicans warn, lose so badly in red or purple states choosing senators in 2016 (Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, Illinois) that he would cost Republicans control of the Senate.

It is, however, unclear that Trumpkins will all migrate to one candidate when their hero departs, strutting while slouching. And although deferring delights can be virtuous, nothing is now more virtuous than scrubbing, as soon as possible, the Trump stain from public life.

I used the old saw “Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan” to describe the recriminations around the end of the Scott Walker presidential campaign one week ago.

Matthew Continetti adds more:

One day after Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race, the Politico headline read: “Walker’s campaign manager unloads.” The same day, the Washington Post had an article, “Inside the collapse of Scott Walker’s presidential bid,” that also drew heavily from Walker’s campaign manager, GOP consultant Rick Wiley. It’s almost as if Wiley had an agenda.

You’ll be shocked to discover that Wiley was preparing an “all-in Iowa plan” that would have slashed personnel, moved headquarters to Des Moines, and rejuvenated the campaign. But Walker and his wife said no. “Campaign sources said Tonette Walker, the Wisconsin first lady, had never warmed to Wiley,” Politico reports. Gee — I wonder who those “campaign sources” were. Did one call himself “Wick Riley”?

One reason Republicans hate political consultants is that so many of them seem to have absolutely no conception of loyalty or reticence or even self-awareness. Scott Walker is a talented governor who won three elections in a blue state. He deserves the respect of his employees, who were happy to spin best-case scenarios for him as long as the money was good. Now, though, Walker’s campaign manager is suddenly out of a job. So what does he do? Like a true Washingtonian, he absolves himself of responsibility for the collapse while explaining to the press — and to his future clients — that it was entirely the governor’s fault.

“I think people just look at it and say, ‘Wow! Yeah, you know, it’s like he’s a governor and he was in the recall and blah, blah, blah — he’s ready,” Wiley told Politico. “It’s just not like that. It is really, really difficult … I’m just saying, you know, like it’s a f—ing bitch, man. It really is.” Poor baby — who knew presidential campaigns were tough?

I’m not a consultant and I didn’t support Walker. But even I recognize that it’s incumbent on political professionals, who reap great sums of money for advising and crafting messages for candidates, to inform their employers of the rigors and requirements of the trail. To level with them when the situation is dire. To rehearse answers to questions they surely will be asked. And if the candidate is unreceptive to this advice, if he turns out not to be the man the consultant thought he was, if the whole affair is “really, really difficult,” then these professionals have an option: quit. Return the check. It’s not like there are no other candidates this cycle. Find someone you believe in. Work for him.

And if you stick with your candidate, and he continues to disappoint you, and ultimately he fails — well, shut up. Please, shut up. Fall on your sword. It’s the honorable thing. You don’t have to scurry to the coffee shop to call Dan Balz. You don’t have to unleash the furies of hell on Twitter, and say the candidate lost because he didn’t listen to you. Republicans have Bush. What they need is Bushido.

Using the Washington Post to re-litigate internal fights is unseemly. Using the Washington Post to blame the candidate? That’s disgusting. “We didn’t have a spending problem,” Wiley told the Post. “We had a revenue problem.” Got that? It’s not the highly paid consultant’s fault — it’s the candidate’s for not bringing in the donations. We wouldn’t want people to think otherwise: That would limit Wiley’s earnings potential!

This outpouring of back-stabbing vindictiveness and self-seeking puts me in mind of the 2008 McCain campaign, when strategists Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace leaked disparaging material about their vice-presidential candidate even before Election Day. The tell-all mentality became more pronounced as soon as Sarah Palin was back in Alaska. Schmidt and Wallace became popular with the liberal press because they went out of their way to belittle and criticize their boss’s choice of running mate behind his back. What courage. Schmidt’s prize was an appointment as a MSNBC contributor and a ticket to the premiere of Game Change. Wallace got to listen to Whoopi Goldberg for an hour five days a week — more punishment than reward if you ask me. She has since been fired.

Yes, of course, using the media to bad mouth rivals and provide behind-the-scenes accounts is exactly “how the game is played.” But it is precisely this game that so disgusts the Republican base: Operatives who turn to media, social or otherwise, to settle scores and deflect criticism are the very face of Washington establishmentarianism, of the incest and cronyism, the duplicity and betrayal that the public opposes. You don’t have to make excuses. You don’t have to blame others. You don’t have to betray the confidence of your boss. And you certainly don’t have to do it before the body of the campaign is cold. The fact that so many consultants do all of these things nevertheless says something about the character of our political establishment: that it is inward looking, selfish, unaware, moronic. What doomed Walker? Fundamentally he was a local politician, schooled in municipal and state issues, unprepared to address the full spectrum of controversies in a presidential election. He was not a dramatic speaker, Donald Trump caught him off guard, he spent too much too quickly, and his heart just doesn’t seem to have been in it. He doesn’t seem to have been able to choose loyal advisers — and you get what you pay for. In this sense alone we should listen to Rick Wiley: Politics is a f—ing bitch indeed.