Organizations: American Enterprise Institute

Crossroads GPS: “Silly Spending” NY-01

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Crossroads GPS hits Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) over his support for the Recovery Act, suggesting Bishop voted for a series of wasteful projects while New York lost jobs. But the Recovery Act helped keep the recession from becoming even more severe, and the outlandish things Crossroads claims Bishop supported are seriously misrepresented. Meanwhile, New York and the country as a whole have been gaining jobs since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

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Crossroads GPS: “Silly Spending” NY-25

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Crossroads GPS hits Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) over her support for the Recovery Act, suggesting Slaughter voted for a series of wasteful projects while New York lost jobs. But the Recovery Act helped keep the recession from becoming even more severe, and the outlandish things Crossroads claims Slaughter supported are seriously misrepresented. Meanwhile, New York and the country as a whole have been gaining jobs since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

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Crossroads GPS: “Silly Spending” IA-03

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Crossroads GPS hits Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) over his support for the Recovery Act, suggesting Boswell voted for a series of wasteful projects while Iowa lost jobs. But the Recovery Act helped keep the recession from becoming even more severe, and the outlandish things Crossroads claims Boswell supported are seriously misrepresented. Meanwhile, Iowa and the country as a whole have been gaining jobs since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

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American Crossroads: “Four More”

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American Crossroads looks forward in its latest ad, warning viewers that President Obama’s second-term plans will bring tax hikes on small businesses, job losses, and higher debt. In reality, Obama wants to extend tax cuts for the middle class while phasing out tax breaks on income above $250,000. That would reduce deficits without harming job creation, and the flawed study that American Crossroads cites to claim otherwise does not actually address Obama’s proposal. Meanwhile, the ad also claims that Obama has “nothing to show” for his first term, ignoring the economic disaster he inherited and the 4.7 million new private-sector jobs created over the last 31 months of growth.

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“Nonpartisan Study” Backing Romney’s Tax Plan Comes From Conservative Think Tank That Employed Romney Advisers

In an effort to discredit the Tax Policy Center’s conclusion that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would either impose higher taxes on the middle class or require increased deficits, Republicans are touting a supposedly “nonpartisan study” proving otherwise. Last week, the Romney campaign released a television ad referencing the study that purports to refute the criticism of Romney’s plan.

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The “nonpartisan” analysis comes from the American Enterprise Institute, a decidedly conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. In fact, Romney’s economic team includes at least three people affiliated with AEI. Romney advisers Glenn Hubbard and Gregory Mankiw are both listed on AEI’s website as “visiting scholars.” Hubbard, who preceded Mankiw as chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, was “an architect of the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003,” according to the Washington Post. Another economic adviser and surrogate, Kevin Hassett, is AEI’s Director of Economic Policy Studies.

The author of the report backing Romney’s position is Alex Brill, an AEI research fellow who also served on President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. While Brill insists that Romney’s plan is “not a tax hike on the middle class,” he has previously criticized President Obama’s preference for tax cuts geared toward the middle class instead of the wealthiest Americans. In October 2008, Brill co-authored an op-ed arguing that “rate cuts for high incomes or reductions in investment taxes” are superior to Obama’s “tax favors for the middle class.”

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American Future Fund: “Security”

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American Future Fund suggests President Obama has been negligent on his national security duties, claiming he “skips 50 percent of his national security briefings” and insinuating that he blew off a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting. In reality, President Obama reads his security briefing each day and is regularly updated by intelligence personnel, and while there was never any in-person meeting scheduled with Netanyahu, they did speak on the phone.

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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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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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