Issues: Bush Tax Cuts

Crossroads GPS: “No Dice”

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Crossroads GPS accuses Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) of supporting “billions in wasted spending projects that didn’t help Missouri,” citing as evidence Recovery Act grants that went to California, Vermont, and Texas. However, those three projects cost less than $30 million combined, and the Recovery Act funds were distributed all across the country to help turn the economy around. The ad further misleads by blaming McCaskill, instead of costly Bush policies and the recession, for driving up the debt.

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Crossroads GPS: “Hiding Taxes”/”Pay Raises”

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A reissued ad from Crossroads GPS abandons the plainly false claim that former Heidi Heitkamp “spent taxpayer dollars on private planes” as North Dakota’s Attorney General, replacing it with the equally disingenuous phrase “allowed staff to fly a taxpayer-funded plane.” But the very article cited in the ad explains that the planes were used for drug enforcement – not the stylish travel GPS implies even after admitting the initial lie about Heitkamp spending money on the aircraft. In addition, the ad misleads on pay raises given underpaid attorneys in Heitkamp’s office, positions she took on car insurance and coal taxes in the ’90s, and her 2012 position on taxes.

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American Future Fund: “Frustrating”

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American Future Fund (AFF) is trying to convince New Mexico voters that Rep. Martin Heinrich is responsible for the effects of the Great Recession, which started wreaking havoc on the economy well before Heinrich took office in January 2009. In the process, AFF throws out a misleading statistic on New Mexico’s unemployment and criticizes Heinrich over his support for the stimulus, which prevented an even greater economic catastrophe, created American jobs, and cut taxes for millions.

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Crossroads GPS: “Sense”

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Crossroads GPS uses Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s vote in favor of the Middle Class Tax Cut Act to accuse him of supporting tax hikes on Montana families and small businesses. In reality, Tester’s vote supported an extension of the Bush tax cuts for all income up to $200,000. Those earning more than that – approximately the top 1.4 percent of households – are, contrary to Crossroads’ suggestion, very rarely actual small businesses. Crossroads’ other evidence for Tester’s supposed habit of hiking taxes is the health care law, which won’t increase taxes for the majority of Americans.

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Crossroads GPS: “People Over Government”

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Crossroads GPS is attacking Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) over taxes, attempting to cast her support for ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as a determination to increase taxes on small businesses. But what McCaskill has actually “voted repeatedly” to do is to cut everyone’s taxes on their first $200,000 of income, and to revert to Clinton-era rates on the 1.4 percent of Americans who earn enough to benefit from the top-end Bush tax cuts. In addition to the standard conservative conflation of rich people and small businesses, the GPS ad misleads about the tax impact of health care reform, and implies that it’s McCaskill, and not a massive global economic crisis, that’s hurt Missouri’s manufacturers.

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Americans For Prosperity: “A One Term Proposition”

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An ad from Americans for Prosperity features a flurry of TV news clips about rising debt in the past few years and connects them to President Obama’s statement in February 2009 that “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” However, recent deficits have been fueled by Bush policies and the recession, and the ad takes the president’s words completely out of context. In fact, Obama was talking about whether efforts to rescue the economy would lead to economic progress. Since that interview, massive monthly job losses have turned into steady private-sector growth, including 4.5 million new private-sector jobs in the last 29 months.

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Crossroads GPS: “Calendar”

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An ad from Crossroads GPS suggests that Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), who is running for the Senate, is responsible for an “explosion” in debt since he took office. But the main drivers of the debt in recent years are Bush policies, such as tax breaks for the wealthy, and the recession – not policies that Heinrich voted for since he took office in 2009. In fact, the Recovery Act helped prevent an even worse economic collapse, and the Affordable Care Act reduces the deficit.

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Fiscal Frauds: Conservatives Support Policies That Blew Up The Debt

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From the Heritage Foundation to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to purely political organizations like FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth, nearly the entire infrastructure of the right criticizes President Obama for the current state of our national debt. It is instructive to look back on these groups’ positions on the two primary drivers of both recent and future deficits: President Bush’s tax cuts and the expansion of the war on terror to Iraq. AEI, Heritage, and the Hoover Institution may be debt hawks now, but their roles in pushing the costly and misguided invasion of Iraq began almost before the wreckage was cleared at Ground Zero in New York City. And while it’s unremarkable that conservative institutions would support reducing taxes, the promises made in debate over the Bush tax cuts by Heritage, Americans for Tax Reform, and the like fly in the face of their current griping about our indebtedness.

Conservative Institutions Blame President Obama’s “Spending Binge” For Rising Debt

HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Heritage Foundation Decries Obama’s “Vision” Of “Deeper Deficits.” From the Heritage Foundation’s response to President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2013: “The Administration’s apparent vision is one of bigger government, more spending, higher taxes, and deeper deficits. At a time when runaway spending and swelling deficits must be reversed, President Obama increases both.” [Heritage.org, 2/28/12]

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Crossroads GPS: “Suffered”

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Crossroads GPS attempts to link “three years of crushing unemployment” to President Obama’s “failed” investments in clean energy through the Recovery Act. In addition to misrepresenting the program that provided loans for Solyndra and other companies, Crossroads GPS conveniently overlooks what really ‘crushed’ the job market: a historically devastating recession that was destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs per month when Obama was inaugurated. Since then, the avalanche of job losses has turned into steady growth, with the private sector gaining 4.5 million jobs over the last 29 months. The ad also blames Obama for the rising debt without noting the disastrous fiscal impact of Bush policies, such as tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and the recession.

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Crossroads GPS: “Tried”

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A Crossroads GPS ad attacking President Obama wrongly suggests several consequences of the recession are the result of the president’s economic policies. In fact, it’s Bush-era policies that drove up the federal debt, while the private sector has added jobs in each of 28 consecutive months for a total of 4.5 million new jobs since March 2010.

Read more after the jump.