Issues: Recession

American Crossroads: “No Slate”

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Calling her an “extreme politician,” American Crossroads suggests Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) voted to raise taxes on the middle-class, citing her support for health care reform. But the Affordable Care Act does not raise taxes on most Americans and actually reduces the overall burden on the middle class. The law also reduces future Medicare spending without cutting seniors’ current benefits. Meanwhile, the rising debt in recent years has been fueled by the recession and Bush policies, such as tax breaks for the wealthy that Baldwin opposed.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Both”

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Crossroads GPS doubles up in an ad hitting both President Obama and Tim Kaine for spending, deficits, taxes, and looming defense cuts brought on by the failure of a deficit-reduction super committee to reach a deal. The group also uses an out-of-context quote from Kaine to suggest he blindly supports the president’s policies. In reality, the recession created budget deficits on the state level, while Bush-era Republican policies are largely responsible on the national level. Spending growth is low under Obama, and Kaine cut billions to leave Virginia with a balanced budget. And while both Kaine and Obama supported the debt limit deal that created the super committee and imposed sequester as an incentive for compromise, both support finding a way to avoid the defense cuts.

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Congressional Leadership Fund: “Swept”

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The Congressional Leadership Fund criticizes Gary McDowell (D-MI) for supporting state-level tax increases and President Obama’s Recovery Act, suggesting that McDowell’s agenda “helped sink Michigan’s economy.” But the tax increases, which were accompanied by spending cuts, were part of a compromise to close the deficit and keep the state government operating. And the Recovery Act created jobs — in America, not China — and helped prevent an even deeper recession.

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Crossroads GPS: “Down”

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Crossroads GPS would like Ohio voters to forget the Bush recession ever happened and attribute all of their recent economic troubles to Sen. Sherrod Brown (D). But while the recession destroyed millions of jobs nationwide, Ohio’s unemployment rate has fallen by almost a third during the recovery, which has featured consistent private-sector job growth. The recession was also a significant factor, along with other Bush administration policies, to high deficits over the last several years.

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Americans for Tax Reform: “Charlie Wilson – Control”

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Americans for Tax Reform attacks Rep. Charlie Wilson over rising national debt, blaming him for “reckless spending,” when in reality, the recession and policies like the Bush tax cuts are the guilty parties. Wilson’s vote for the bank bailout helped prevent a potential depression, and his vote to raise the debt limit didn’t cause new spending — it prevented the economic catastrophe that would have resulted from a default on federal debts.

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American Future Fund: “Hoosier”

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American Future Fund accuses Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) of abandoning “Hoosier values” by supporting “Obama’s costly policies,” such as the Affordable Care Act and the Recovery Act. However, the health care law actually reduces the deficit, and the stimulus bill helped rescue the economy from a deeper recession. Furthermore, AFF suggests that the economy is not improving, but the facts show otherwise: The private-sector has now added 4.7 million jobs in the last 31 months.

Read more after the jump.

Congressional Leadership Fund: “Twinkle”

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Citing a series of votes between 2008 and 2011, Congressional Leadership Fund blames Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) for the rising debt. In reality, recent deficits have been fueled by the recession and Bush-era policies like tax cuts for the wealthy. The votes the ad targets, by contrast, were for bills designed to rescue failing banks, the floundering housing market, and a tanking economy, and to raise the federal debt limit – a procedure that does not authorize new spending but does prevent the government from defaulting on its loans.

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Now Or Never PAC: “Radical Agenda”

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Now or Never PAC attempts to portray Heidi Heitkamp as a pro-Wall Street, environmental radical, who will “rubber stamp” President Obama’s second-term agenda, but the evidence does not support the group’s claims. After all, Heitkamp’s opponent has taken more than 10 times as much cash from Wall Street than she has — and over $600,000 total from the broader finance, insurance, and real estate sector. That makes Heitkamp’s $22,000 from lawyers whose clients include opponents of fracking look fairly insubstantial – especially when Heitkamp is on the record harshly criticizing President Obama on energy policy.

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Congressional Leadership Fund: “Hall Of Fame”

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Congressional Leadership Fund accuses Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) of voting for an expensive stimulus bill that “created jobs in China,” but the article the ad cites points to a project that never actually received any stimulus money. The ad also criticizes Sutton for her support of a cap-and-trade bill and the bank bailout, even though the former would have stimulated the economy with little cost to consumers and the latter, which passed in a bipartisan fashion after urging from President Bush, helped avert another Great Depression.

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American Action Network: “Rail”

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The American Action Network dishonestly attacks congressional candidate Jose Hernandez (D-CA-10) for living in Texas, branding him as a cowboy and a carpetbagger even though the California native only lived outside the state while working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as an astronaut. The group also criticizes Hernandez for supporting high-speed rail as a way to create jobs, as well as the Recovery Act, which helped save the economy from an even deeper recession.

Read more after the jump.