Issues: Economy

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: “Holes”

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Crossroads GPS attempts to take Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine to task for both ‘soaring spending’ and ‘devastating’ cuts to spending on higher education during Kaine’s tenure as the state’s governor. But the budgetary reality of Kaine’s tenure was largely determined by the foibles of the global economy, which saw Kaine into office during a period of strength before enduring a massive recession that devastated state revenues and forced the governor and the legislature to make tough decisions about cuts. Ultimately, Kaine balanced every budget during his tenure.

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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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Private-Sector Recovery Diminished By Shrinking Government Payrolls

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It’s unremarkable for President Obama’s opponents to deride his career in public service; ever since Ronald Reagan ran into term limits, conservatives have insisted that business experience is more important in the White House than intellect, vision, and policy knowledge. But conservative reverence for the business world and disdain for government work is so dogmatic today that Republicans often claim that Obama’s policies have primarily, or even only, benefitted the public sector at the expense of the private economy. This is nonsense. The primary difference between the Obama recovery and the previous three post-recession economies, other than the depth of the crater Wall Street’s actions created, is that where government payrolls expanded under Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Reagan, the public sector has shed well over half a million jobs since the end of the recession. Meanwhile, private-sector hiring has been far more consistent than conservatives would have you believe.

3.3 Million New Private-Sector Jobs Since Recession, But 640,000 Government Employees Out Of Work

Recession Officially Ran From December 2007 To June 2009, Making It The Longest Since World War II. From the National Bureau of Economic Research: “The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met yesterday by conference call. At its meeting, the committee determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007 and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. Previously the longest postwar recessions were those of 1973-75 and 1981-82, both of which lasted 16 months. In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month.” [NBER.org, 9/20/10]

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Unequal America: The Facts About Income Inequality And Economic Mobility

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The American economic pie may have increased in size, but 95 percent of Americans are getting a smaller slice than in the past. This is partly because the top 1 percent of the country has nearly quadrupled the size of its own helping. Their nearly 300 percent increase in take-home pay over that time dwarfs the more modest progress of the rest. Furthermore, while conservatives allege that progressives seek equal outcomes for all, at the cost of American economic freedom, the fact is our storied “equality of opportunity” is overstated. Economic mobility is scarce in the U.S. compared to other advanced economies, and most born into wealth or poverty stay more or less where they started.

Earnings Have Exploded For The Top 1 Percent, While Everyone Else Has Seen Much More Modest Growth

Economic Boom Following World War II Saw Income Gains “Distributed Rapidly Across Income Classes.” From the Economic Policy Institute’s State of Working America: “Between 1947 and 1973, economic growth was both rapid and distributed equally across income classes. The poorest 20% of families saw growth at least as fast as the richest 20% of families, and everybody in between experienced similar rates of income growth. Since then, growth in average living standards has unambiguously slowed. Between 1973 and 1995, growth in productivity, or how much income can be generated in each hour of work, collapsed to less than half the rate that characterized the previous quarter century.” [The State Of Working America, accessed 3/7/12]

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The Truth About Tax Cuts For The Rich, Deregulation, And Job Creation

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Despite demanding immediate deficit reduction in a difficult economy, conservatives insist that any increase in tax rates for top income earners will kill jobs. Instead, they argue for lowering tax rates on the wealthiest Americans (while downplaying the deficit impact of such a tax cut) as way to increase hiring. There is no evidence for this argument, however intuitive it may seem. Lower tax rates on the rich are not associated with more hiring or stonger GDP growth, and while conservatives insist that top income tax rates hit small businesses heavily, their ludicrous definition of “small business” renders that statement meaningless. Along with the threat of higher taxes, conservatives insist that federal regulations are holding back job creation and have made loosening the rules a focus of their agenda. However, tax breaks for the wealthy and deregulation do almost nothing to increase consumer demand, which is the true driver of hiring and expansion decisions.

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Crossroads GPS: “News”

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Crossroads GPS attacks President Obama’s economic record with a clip of a CBS News report stating that “this is the worst economic recovery America has ever had.” Blaming the president for high unemployment, the ad fails to acknowledge the severity of the Bush recession, which caused the economy to continue to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the first months of the Obama administration, and the GOP-favored public-sector downsizing that’s led to government layoffs. Far from ‘failing,’ the Recovery Act helped avert an even more severe economic collapse.

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U.S. Chamber Of Commerce: “Tammy Baldwin – Failure”

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce accuses Wisconsin Rep. Tammy Baldwin of ‘making it worse’ for Wisconsin families by voting for the Dodd-Frank wall street reform bill and for health care reform, making false accusations about the legislation in the process. For instance, Dodd-Frank regulations target large firms in order to help prevent another financial sector meltdown — not, as the ad claims, small businesses. And the claim that Affordable Care Act — which won’t raise taxes for most Americans – is a job-killer has been debunked.

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Crossroads GPS: “Hiding”

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Crossroads GPS criticizes North Dakota Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp for supporting the Affordable Care Act, even though, according to the ad, the “Supreme Court ruled Obamacare is a massive increase on working families.” Of course, while the Supreme Court ruled that the law’s requirement that people obtain health insurance or pay a small penalty is constitutional under Congress’ taxing power, the decision did not say anything about how the provision would affect working families. In reality, the Affordable Care Act does not directly raise taxes on most working Americans, and it will actually provide tax relief for millions. The ad also misleads on the law’s Medicare savings – which do not ‘cut’ seniors’ benefits – while failing to mention that Heitkamp’s opponent voted to preserve nearly all of those spending reductions.

Read more after the jump.