Crossroads GPS attacks Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) for supporting two “trillion-dollar” bills, citing his votes for the Affordable Care Act and the Recovery Act. But the health care law actually reduces deficits, while tax cuts accounted for about one-third of the Recovery Act’s price tag. In addition to creating jobs and helping prevent an even deeper recession, the recovery bill cut taxes for up to 95 percent of working Americans.
Read more after the jump.Crossroads GPS attacks Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine (D) over his support for last year’s deal to raise the debt ceiling, which created the deficit reduction “super committee” and imposed defense cuts as an incentive for members of the committee to reach a compromise. Now that the super committee has failed and the defense cuts are looming, GPS is accusing Kaine of backing a plan to “devastate America’s defense and Virginia jobs.” But Kaine supported the debt ceiling deal because it was necessary to avoid devastating economic default, and he has laid out a plan to avoid the impending defense cuts.
Read more after the jump.American Crossroads is countering the Democratic National Convention with an ad claiming that President Obama has taken the country “backward,” citing what the ad calls “America’s worst economic recovery ever.” However, the ad ignores the severity of the recession President Bush left behind, as well as the decline in government employment (which conservatives favor) that distinguishes the current recovery from previous ones. Indeed, the private sector has grown steadily for the past 30 months, adding 4.6 million jobs during that period. Crossroads also dishonestly calls the Affordable Care Act a “tax on middle-class families” and blames the president for deficits that are fueled by Bush policies and the recession.
Read more after the jump.Crossroads GPS attacks Rep. Tammy Baldwin for opposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which it says would “stop the mounting national debt that threatens Wisconsin’s economy.” However, by forcing the government to make additional cuts any time the economy slumps and revenues fall, the balanced budget amendment would make future recessions even more severe. Meanwhile, the rising debt during Baldwin’s tenure has been fueled by President Bush’s policies, including costly tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that Baldwin opposed.
Read more after the jump.An ad from Crossroads GPS attacks Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) over the national debt, suggesting that he’s to blame even though it was Bush-era policies and the recession that drove up spending and decreased revenues. The Recovery Act helped prevent an even worse recession, and the “budget-busting” health care law actually reduces the deficits. Moreover, a vote against raising the debt ceiling wouldn’t keep down debt – it would have prevented the U.S. from paying bills it had already incurred and risked economic catastrophe.
Read more after the jump.The latest ad from Restore Our Future contrasts Mitt Romney’s “life in the private sector” with familiar distortions of President Obama’s record. In reality, the “failed stimulus” helped rescue the economy from the recession, kept the unemployment rate from rising even more, and cut taxes for millions of Americans. Obama also inherited a projected deficit above $1 trillion, driven by Bush policies and the recession, and Republicans have consistently rejected the president’s deficit-reduction efforts.
Read more after the jump.A Crossroads GPS ad attacks Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine for supporting the sequestration defense cuts, but Kaine has made it clear that he wants to find a deal to avoid the cuts and has even laid out a specific proposal. In reality, the deal Kaine supported was a bipartisan plan to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default on our loans – a deal that also created a committee to propose a deficit reduction strategy and imposed sequestration as an incentive to avoid failure. That panel ultimately failed because its Republican members refused to consider tax increases, even after Democrats offered several concessions on spending cuts.
Read more after the jump.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.
Read more after the jump.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.
Read more after the jump.An ad from Crossroads GPS ridicules President Obama for making “excuses for the bad economy,” using footage of the president speaking about global challenges that have affected the recovery. But while the ad suggests that Obama’s “wild spending and skyrocketing debt” are the real problem, those are legacies of the Bush years and the crushing recession that Obama inherited, and Republicans have consistently opposed Obama’s efforts to bring down the deficit.
Read more after the jump.
