Americans For Prosperity
2111 Wilson Blvd, Ste. 350
Arlington, VA 22201

1. Paul wrote:

                I get fund-raiser mail from various sources; I think that I have earlier received this very same one that came today from “Americans for Prosperity.”  Their main mission seems to be ANTI-OBAMA, but their long letter includes a lot of “right wing” principles.  On page one there is this totally underscored paragraph:

In fact, according to U.S. Representative Paul Ryan’s video “Path to Prosperity,” the Congressional Budget Office’s computer program used to model the future U.S. economy crashes when it reaches the year 2037.  The program simply can’t project the U.S. economy surviving 26 more years based on the current levels of debt and spending.

                I wonder what, in the program, would lead anyone to say that.   It saves me the trouble of reading the rest of their long letter. I do wonder, though, how many people blessed this publication before it was sent to a list big enough to include me twice.  (They paid $1.28 postage to send each copy and each included a new 44¢ stamp on the envelope for my contribution.)

2. Carol wrote:

When I saw the incoming e-mail from Paul, for some reason I assumed it was another ad-hoc committee Fund nomination, and then I was surprised that Paul would even be interested in something with a name like Americans for Prosperity.  Well, now I see in what way I was wrong and right! 
Carol

3. Bob wrote:

3.1

Even if the highlighted paragraph is literally true, it appears to be intentionally misleading. First, non-computer-literate readers do not necessarily know that a computer program crash is a sudden failure. They may think that the program is predicting an economic crash, when in fact a program crash is the result of a condition that should not happen, the most obvious example being a division by zero. Second, a computer-literate but not computer-savvy person may assume that the crash is due to a bad result of the prediction, rather than failure to handle an exception, which is a design error. It may be that the program is only designed to forecast for a maximum of twenty-five years into the future. I will add that when the Congressional Budget Office actually does a forecast, it is done with specified assumptions identified in detail. If the program is only designed to forecast for a maximum of twenty-five years into the future, and that only with well-defined assumptions, then attempting to forecast to 2037, twenty-six years in the future, may run out of memory. If so, the program should reject the request to forecast through 2037 rather than crashing.

In my job as a lead software tester, part of my job is to enter bad data and verify that error messages are displayed rather than the program crashing.

One conclusion is that, if one is to assign truth values to statements, there needs to be a non-obvious value permitted. Obvious values are: true; false; partly true and partly false; unknown. A non-obvious value that some of us are already aware of is: paradoxical. Example: “All statements made by Cretans are lies. - - Epimenedes of Crete.” (By the way, the absurdity of that statement was not visible to St. Paul, who quotes it in the First Letter to Timothy, who was Bishop of Crete.) Another non-obvious value should be: True but deliberately misleading. Then again, maybe that is not a truth value but only a moral judgment on the deceptive truth-teller.

3.2

I had made the same assumption as Carol, but I had guessed that Paul would be recommending that the organization be placed on the not selected list or the ineligible list. We probably should take that action anyway, although Paul was not evaluating them.

4. Evaluation

Americans for Prosperity is a political advocacy organization with a small-government, no-tax-increases, spending-cuts agenda. It should be categorized as Ineligible for contributions from the 501(c)(3) Special Endowment.

There are two possible choices for categorization for contributions from the 501(c)(4) General Endowment, Ineligible, or Not Selected due to eligibility concerns. The agenda of Americans for Prosperity would advance the interests of wealthy Americans. Whether it would result in an increase over current policies in per capita GDP (average income) is a matter on which reasonable opinions differ; they undoubtedly, from their name, think so. They would almost certainly not improve the economic condition of those of the American people who are at an economic disadvantage. (See Article Three, paragraph A, of the charter.) I would recommend that the Board categorize Americans for Prosperity as Ineligible for contributions from the General Endowment on the basis of paragraph G2 of Article Six of the charter: “In no case are contributions to be made by the Fund to advance the interests of any economically advantaged group of any sort as such, nor in any case to favor any (actually or potentially) privileged class….” (This language is summarized in paragraph F9 of Bylaw VI, as: “No contributions shall be made from the General Endowment or the Special Endowment for … any advantaged or privileged group.” However, the charter language is stronger.) If the Board disagrees that 6G2 clearly applies, then the Board can instead categorize Americans for Prosperity as Not Selected due to eligibility concerns (the 6G2 issue being the concern) from the General Endowment.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert McClenon

9 December 2011