SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010


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EZ RE Sunday OPINION TOPICA DANAMILBANK of fancy I


n this, the autumn of don’t touch my junk, conservatives have proposed a new model for aviation security inAmerica. “What the Israelis do—and I’ve flown on


El Al about a dozen times to Israel — what they do is the way it ought to be done,” says likely Republican presidential candidate MikeHuckabee. “I traveled to Israel, and I tell you what,”


says Tea Party darling AllenWest, congress- man-elect from Florida. “They have very good procedures and you don’t have to go through all of these very draconian practic- es.”


Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), making the


rounds of cable TV, says the federal govern- ment “flubbed the dub” because “they didn’t take the Israeli model.” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Tea Party godfather, praised the “Israelimodel” during a Senate hearing, and Fox News’s Sean Hannity proclaimed: “We have aparadigm, amodel that is enormously successful, and that’s Israel.” The Israeli model for airport screening


has,without adoubt,beensuccessful.Butdo these guys have any idea what they are proposing? Replicating the Israeli model in the United States would easily cost $40 billion a year — and possibly many times that.Thatwouldwind up beingmore expen- sive than supposed big-government boon- doggles such as the Troubled Assets Relief Programand the auto bailout, and it would wipe out Republican promises to cut spend- ing. Campaign pledges to cut the budget were


bound to collide eventually with governing realities—but so soon? In a time-consuming and labor-intensive


process, Israel uses profiling, background checks and extensive interviews to identify the highest-risk fliers,who are then subject- ed to searches of luggage and person more invasive than anything the Transportation Security Administration has conjured. The air securityargumenthasbeenaboutwheth- er Americans would prefer Israeli-style pro- filingtothecurrent systemofbodyscansand pat-downs.But this overlooks amore funda- mentalproblem:TheIsraeli system,evenif it could be scaled up, is out of our price range. El Al, Israel’s national carrier, reported


spending $107,828,000 on security in 2009 for the 1.9millionpassengers it carried.That worksout toabout$56.75perpassenger.The United States, by contrast, spent $5.33 bil- lion on aviation security in fiscal 2010, and the air travel system handled 769.6 million passengers in2009(a lowyear), accordingto theBureauofTransportationStatistics.That amounts to $6.93 per passenger. The analogy isn’tperfect,because security


is largely handled by the airline in Israel and by the government here. (In both countries, the government pays just under two-thirds of the security costs.)But this roughcompar- ison indicates that Israel spends more than eight times asmuch on security per passen- ger. To duplicate that, the United States would need to spend an extra $38 billion a year. And that might understate the cost of


staffing the nation’s sprawling air travel system with highly skilled interrogators; Israel, after all, has only one major airport. In Foreign Policy magazine, Annie Lowrey calculatedearly this year that if eachpassen- ger flying through a U.S. airport were sub- jected to 10 minutes of questioning by a guard, we would need 3 million full-time guards, at a cost ofmore than $150 billion a year. That would more than cancel plans by


incoming House Speaker John Boehner to cut $100 billion fromthe budget this year by returning spending to 2008 levels. It’s also substantially more than the combined cost of TARP, which the Treasury said will wind up costing about $50 billion, and the auto bailout, forecast to cost $17 billion. It eclips- es the $40 billion forAIGandwould eventu- ally top the bailouts of Fannie Mae and FreddieMac, expected to total $360 billion. The $16 billion that Republicans say they’ll save by banning pet-project earmarks is small change by comparison. Implementing the Israeli model also


wouldamount toamassive government jobs program– just the sort of junk conservatives said theywouldn’t touch. Alternatively, if Boehner succeeds in his


plantocut spendingto2008levels, spending on aviation securitywould drop to $6.20 per passenger—just over a tenth of what Israel spends.Ultimately,we can’t, orwon’t, spend enough to emulate the Israelimodel, which is why we’re using the cheaper method of body scans and pat-downs in the first place. Onthe campaigntrail, talkingabout limit-


ed government sounded virtuous. In prac- tice, cutting government spending isn’t quite somuch fun.


danamilbank@washpost.com Flight What’s best in the deficit reform plans?


DIANELIMROGERS Chief economist at theConcordCoalition and blogger at EconomistMom.com


Of all thepieces of the variousdeficit reduction


proposals, the one I findmost intriguing and (surprisingly) “fiscally responsible” is one that actually increases thedeficit—at least inthe short term.This is thepayroll taxholiday intheAlice Rivlin-PeteDomenici-BipartisanPolicyCenterplan —a “shock andawe”preemptive strike against criticswho automaticallydismiss fiscal consolidationproposals as out of touchwiththe reality of the currently fragile economy. It demonstrateshow“fiscal responsibility”neednot meandeficit reductionnowbut shouldmean getting themost out of everydollar ofdeficit spendingwedo andavoiding theunnecessary deficit financing of longer-termspending or tax cuts. Relative to sucha large (buthighly effective)


deficit-financedstimulus, theBushtax cuts look bothreallywimpy as stimulus andirresponsible in terms of longer-termcost.This shouldget policymakers to ask themselves:Whydoweneedto extendtheBushtax cuts, eventemporarily?The one-year fullpayroll taxholidaymight be “overkill” (at a cost ofnearly$700 billion)—but it sure can’t be accusedof being badfor the short-termeconomy or of beingunaffordablepermanent taxpolicy only disguisedas effective stimulus. If thispayroll taxholiday idea couldget


policymakers (includingPresidentObama) to snapout of theirpreoccupationover theBush tax cuts andconsider smarter alternatives, it could, ironically, become theproposal that does themost to reduce thedeficit over the longer term.


MARKZANDI Chief economist atMoody’s Economy.com


The latestproposals toaddress the


nation’s long-termfiscal challengeshaveput tax expenditures inthe crosshairs.Let’shope policymakerspull the trigger.Exclusions, exemptions,deductionsandcredits that riddle the tax code cost the federalgovernmentmore than$1 trillioneachyear.Themortgage interestdeductionalone costswell over $100 billionannually.But therearehundreds more, indirectly fundingstudent expenses, healthinsurance, child-care costs, local property taxesandonandon. Tax expenditures aremoreproperly


thought of as government spending rather thantax cuts.Adeductionfor local property taxes, for example, isno different fromthe federal government sending checks tohomeowners.Cutting tax expenditures is thus cutting government spending. Indeed, removing tax expenditures—whichare really tax breaks targetedfor specificpurposes—is analogous to eliminating congressional earmarks. Most tax expenditures are also


inefficient andregressive.Themortgage interestdeductiondoesnothing to improve housing affordability, its ostensible goal. Any tax benefit is simply “capitalized” into houseprices,whichrise as thededuction fuelsdemand.Andthe benefits flowto owners of biggerhomeswithlarger mortgages andhigher incomes,who can itemize andthus claimthededuction. No one is arguing that these tax breaks


shouldbe eliminatedtoday or evennext year. But ifpolicymakersdonot scale themback over thenext 10 years, our fiscalmorasswill onlydeepen.


MAYAMACGUINEAS President of the Committee for aResponsible FederalBudget


There’s somuchto like inall thesenew


plans. It is extremely encouraging that the co- chairs of thepresident’s fiscal commission, ErskineBowles andAlanSimpson,wouldboth fix Social Security (youcan’thave a credible


6TOPICAONLINE Mark McClellan, former administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.


budgetplanthatdoesn’t) andput government healthcare onanactual budget.Rightnow, federal spending onhealthcare is open-endedand unsustainable.Weneedto limit the growth, anda great approachis a voucher-like systemasPaul Ryan,AliceRivlinandtheDebtReductionTask Forcehaveproposed.Limits onspending,market forces andconsumerprice incentiveswouldhelp keephealthfromsqueezing out the other important areas of the budget. TheBowles-Simpsonproposal fornot just a


temporary freeze indiscretionary spending but actual cuts is also excellent.There are outdatedand inefficientprograms throughout the budget, and small cuts (there is roomformore thantheir report suggests)willputpressure onagencies andexperts to ferret out the less important spending sowe can preservewhatworks best. The excellent framework for tax expenditure


reformput forthbyBowles andSimpsonshouldbe the startingpoint for fundamental tax reform, andI continue to like anideaBillGalstonandI suggested of awar surtax if operations continue.While budget analysts shouldn’tdecide securitypolicy, it certainly makes sense that if thewars areworthfighting, they areworthpaying for. Toughmeasures?Yes.But beware those favoring


just the tax cuts andspending increases inthe variousplans—since thosepartsdon’t fix the budget.Toughmeasures are exactlywhat theU.S. budgetneeds to get back ontrack.


DOUGLASHOLTZ-EAKIN President of the American Action Forum; former director of theCongressionalBudgetOffice; senior economic adviser to Sen. JohnMcCain’s presidential campaign


Themost excitingBowles-Simpsonproposal calls


for changing the corporate tax system.The current U.S. corporate tax is anti-growthandanti- competitiveness.The rate—35percent—has become thehighest amongdevelopedcountries, as our competitorshave realizedthe value of a lowrate andbroadbase.Lowering the rate to 26percent, as Bowles-Simpsonsuggests, gets theUnitedStates back to themiddle of thepack. Having thehighest rate ismerelydisastrous.


Evenworse, theUnitedStates clings illogically to an outmodedsystemof “worldwide taxation” that every other countryhas abandoned.The stakes are enormous.Under aworldwide systemour firms competing in, say,Brazil are liable forBrazilianand U.S. taxes.AGermanorChinese competitor is subject to only the “territory’s” taxes—inthis case, Brazil’s—giving the competitor anadvantage over U.S. firms ininternational competitionfor 95 percent of theworld’s consumers.Under the Bowles-Simpsonterritorial approach,U.S. firms will compete ona levelplaying fieldineverymarket aroundthe globe. Last butnot least,moving to a territorial system


will stopthe loss ofheadquarters for large multinational firms.The global competitive disadvantage of aworldwide approachforces firms tomove theirheadquarters abroad. Researchfacilities andmanufacturing operations oftenfollowinshort order. Growthandcompetitiveness are


essential to balance the budget.The Bowles-Simpsoncorporate tax reform recognizes that.


ROBERTREISCHAUER President of theUrban Institute; director of the CongressionalBudgetOffice from1989 to 1995


As boththeBowles-Simpsonand


Domenici-Rivlindeficit-reduction proposalshave suggested, it’s time tophase out the special tax treatment afforded employer-paidhealthpremiums andeven the tax-shelteredpremiumspaidby employees throughmechanisms suchas


flexible spending accounts. Tax subsidies for employer-sponsored


healthinsurance (andpoliciespurchasedby the self-employed)undermine our effort to dampenthe growthofhealth-care costs, whichare themajor reasonthe federal budget situationwill become increasing unsustainable.Thepractice is expensive: It reduces income tax receipts bymore than $150 billiona year; addinforegone Social Security andMedicarepayroll taxes andstate income tax receipts andthat amount iswell over$200 billion. It is inequitable:For someone inthe 35percent tax bracket, the exclusionona$10,000policy isworth $3,500; to someonepaying the lowest tax rate, the benefit isworthonly$1,000 for the samepolicy. Aspects of theAffordableCareAct,withits


individualmandate andincome-related premiumcredits thatwillmakepolicies more affordable,helprender the existing tax subsidiesunnecessary. Whenworkers see ontheirW-2s for the


first time the full cost of their insurance, and realize theywill bepaying taxes onthis compensation, theywill begintodemand more cost-conscious insurance.Thiswill giveproviders andinnovators incentives to developmore cost-effectivedelivery systems andinterventions.Federal revenuewill increase andthe rise insystem-widehealth- care costswill slow,moderating the growth ofMedicare,Medicaidandother federal healthspending.


A19


OMBUDSMAN ANDREWALEXANDER When stories just don’t add up


about $667,000 came fromoutsideGiant supermar- kets. “That’s a little less than half of the group’s holiday


A


total,”ThePost reported. “It’s actually a little more than half,” an annoyed


reader e-mailed. “When a journalist gets numbers wrong or does the math and gets that wrong, it reflects badly on the journalist, his employer, and newspurveyors ingeneral.” A review of published corrections for the past


threemonths shows that few days passedwithout a numbers error. I regularly hear complaints that numbers inPost storiesdon’t addup. Some involve faulty statistics. Others result from


math errors. Many are inexplicable, such as last Tuesday’s A-section story that said new industry- wide health-care rules “will affect about 180 Ameri- canswithprivateinsurance” (itshouldhavebeen180 million).Alldamage credibility. “It’s amazing what a minor numerical error can


do,” said journalist Craig Silverman, who tracks media mistakes on his Regret the Error Web site. Whenanews organizationinaccurately reports that a large company lost billions instead of millions of dollars,hesaid, “thestoryis completelyblownapart. It really contributes tomisunderstanding.” In the digital age, with a growing amount of raw


data available online from government and other sources, numerical literacy has never been more important to journalists. Exploiting that data can yield powerful findings, such as The Post’s recent numbers-rich “Hidden Life of Guns” series that


recent Post story said that of the $1.3million


the D.C. Salvation Army collected during its annual Red Kettle fundraising drive last year,


tracedweaponsusedinkillings ofpolice officers. “Today’s journalists no longer just cover the fire


andthe city councilmeeting,” saidScottR.Maier, an associateprofessorof journalismat theUniversityof Oregon who specializes in newsroom numeracy. “They try to explore what’s happening behind the story, andthat ofteninvolvesmath.” But newsrooms seem phobic about numbers.


That self-perception is so deep-rooted that it’s often jokedabout among journalists. “I think we have a culture where it’s okay to say,


‘I’ma journalist,whichmeans I’mterrible atmath,’” said Silverman. “And just that pervasive attitude, that you don’t need to be good at math to be a journalist, contributes to a lot ofmistakes.” Sarah Cohen, a former Post database editor who


shared in a Pulitzer Prize, agreed. “We’ve found it charmingwhen people in the newsroomsay, ‘I can’t domath,’ ” saidCohen,whoholds a journalismchair at Duke University. “I’ve never understood why we think that’s a good thing, butwe think that spelling nameswrong is bad. “What really bothersme isnot the deepmath, but


themistakes insimplemath,” she said. Arejournalists reallyuncommonlybadwithnum-


bers? “We are, more or less, an industry of English


majors,” said Allison Martell, a Canadian freelance writer who has written extensively aboutmath and statistical literacy among journalists. “But there’s a fear of math in the population in general. So it’s naturalwewouldfindthis among journalists, too.” In a fascinating study a decade ago when he was


conductingresearchat theUniversityofNorthCaro- lina, Maier evaluated math skills at the News &


Observer in Raleigh. Its staff was given amath test and the majority demonstrated basic competency. But in focus groups among those same journalists, he said, “there was widespread unease, a lack of confidence” inhandlingnumbers. “Clearly, theyhad thecapabilities,but theyhadtheself-perceptionthat they couldn’thandlemath.” If the perception isn’t reality, why are numerical


errors so common? “I think what’s going on is that when journalists


see a number, they take it at face value and don’t question it,” Maier said. “With numbers, I think journalists tendto abdicate that scrutiny.” Martell agreed, explaining that those intimidated


by math tend to “panic” when forced to deal with numbers. “You don’t really have to know that much about


statistics to read a statistical paper critically,” she said, adding that reporters often cite numbers and statistics touted in news releases without question- ing their accuracy. Many newsrooms provide remedial math train-


ing,but that’snotbeendone atThePost. It shouldbe considered.Andgiventheincreasinguseofnumbers in reporting and graphics, The Post should pay heightened attentiontomathand statistical literacy whenevaluatingprospectivehires. But above all, Post journalists should focus on the


basics.Scrutinizeeverynumber.Double-checkevery percentage. Question every statistic. That’s as basic as one, two, three.


AndrewAlexander can be reached at202-334-7582or at ombudsman@washpost.com. For daily updates, read the omblog at voices.washingtonpost. com/ombudsman-blog.


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