Issues: Recession

Restore Our Future: “New Normal”

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An ad from Restore Our Future dredges up an out-of-context quote from President Obama to suggest he believes 8 percent unemployment is “doing fine.” In reality, Obama was explaining that the private sector is steadily creating new jobs, while declining public-sector employment – a trend favored by conservatives – has slowed the recovery. The private sector has now added 4.6 million jobs over the last 30 consecutive months of growth. The ad also blames the president for America’s “crushing debt,” which exploded as a consequence of Bush administration policies and the recession, but fails to acknowledge that Republicans have rejected Obama’s debt-reduction proposals.

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American Crossroads: “Actually Happened”

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American Crossroads attacks President Obama’s economic record by grossly misrepresenting a “preliminary analysis” of a theoretical stimulus bill, which the president’s economic advisers conducted before his inauguration – and before the unexpected rise in unemployment soon thereafter. The analysis included disclaimers about the possibility of an unusually severe recession, which unfortunately came to fruition. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the devastating conditions Obama inherited would have become even worse without the Recovery Act, which created jobs and cut taxes for millions of working Americans. Since the recession officially ended, the private sector has steadily added jobs, including 4.7 million new jobs in the last 31 consecutive months of growth.

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “IL-13: David Gill”

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The U.S Chamber of Commerce attacks David Gill over taxes and health care, using graphics and audio to suggest that the Illinois congressional candidate’s positions would cause the American economy to flat-line. But they repeat the distortion that the Affordable Care Act cuts Medicare, and mischievously cite their own, ill-conceived study as proof that ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will kill job growth. And leaving aside the fact that the Chamber-commissioned study fail to analyze actual Democratic proposals, the failure of those tax cuts is plain to see in economic data on the past decade.

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Crossroads GPS: “Stamp”

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An ad from Crossroads GPS complains that Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is a “rubber stamp” for spending, citing the Wall Street bailout, the Recovery Act, and the Affordable Care Act. The ad doesn’t acknowledge, however that the bipartisan bank bailout and the stimulus both rescued the economy from an even more severe downturn, while the Affordable Care Act reduces the deficit.

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American Future Fund: “Promises”

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American Future Fund highlights examples of President Obama making similar statements in 2008 and 2012, as if it’s somehow discrediting that, after a term marked by Republican obstructionism, the president would still have any of the same goals that he campaigned on four years ago. To drive the point home, AFF closes with Obama’s statement in 2009 that “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” However, the ad leaves out crucial context: Obama was responding to a question about efforts to rescue the economy, and he suggested that he would lose if voters did not see the economy “starting to make some progress.” Three years later, the economy has added 4.6 million private-sector jobs over 30 consecutive months of growth.

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Restore Our Future: “Kindergarten”

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An ad from pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future complains about high federal debt and the slow economic recovery, asking if America is going “forward” or “backward.” Restore Our Future fails to note, however, that 4.6 million new jobs have been created over 30 consecutive months of private-sector growth, or that GOP-favored public-sector downsizing is dragging down the recovery. In addition, it’s Bush-era policies plus the global recession that set the U.S. on a path towards an explosion of the federal debt.

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Americans For Job Security: “Running”

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Americans for Job Security portrays the economy as still mired in recession, using a woman’s voiceover to suggest that President Obama has failed “to turn the economy around.” But while the economy has yet to dig out of the massive, nearly unprecedented hole created by the 2007-08 financial crisis, it has certainly turned around. The economy was hemorrhaging nearly a million jobs each month when President Bush handed over to Obama, and today the economy has been adding jobs for 30 months – two and a half years straight. Just as the ad’s depiction of the recent past is inaccurate, its insinuations about our immediate future are not supported by the evidence.

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Crossroads GPS: “When”

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Crossroads GPS mimics a DirecTV ad campaign with a stern narrator following a progression of cause and effect starting with the decision to elect Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). But where the original ads are zany and played for laughs, GPS uses the familiar format to sell voters on misinformation. Brown’s vote for the Affordable Care Act isn’t preventing Ohio manufacturers from hiring, as the ad suggests. Indeed, that sector has been the cornerstone of Ohio’s recovery, showing steady job gains since the recession brought on by the financial crisis.

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Crossroads GPS: “Addicted”

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Accusing Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine (D) of being “addicted” to spending, Crossroads GPS cites a budget Kaine proposed as the outgoing governor of Virginia. The plan, which would have made some tough spending cuts in order to balance Virginia’s recession-ravaged budget, would have raised the maximum state income tax rate by just one percentage point, a trade-off for preventing even deeper cuts to essential services. The ad also refers to the looming defense cuts triggered by the failure of the deficit reduction super committee. Kaine supported the creation of the super committee in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, but has laid out a plan for preventing the upcoming defense cuts.

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Crossroads GPS: “Pressure”

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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.