Organizations: Club for Growth

Till The Bill: How Conservatives Wrecked The Farm Bill Over Food Stamps

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With a compromise farm bill finally coming to the House floor, it is worth taking a moment to review why it took this long to get here – endless Republican obstruction.

As Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz were taking the Republican war on health care reform to new extremes, forcing the government to shut down in the process, another political standoff defined by conservative radicalism received much less attention.

Last October, the farm bill expired, leaving uncertain the future of agricultural programs and essential food assistance for the poor. The expiration came after more than a year of intraparty squabbling among Republicans over the size of proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – commonly known as food stamps.

The House Agriculture Committee approved a five-year farm bill extension in July 2012, but congressional conservatives demanded major cuts to the food stamp program as ransom for their support. The debate carried over into the new Congress, where the Tea Party faction successfully blocked the bill from moving forward. Unable to satisfy the far right’s appetite for draconian cuts, Republican leaders eventually poisoned the process by severing the bill and passing “farm-only” legislation alongside a separate measure slashing funding for food stamps.

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The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

It’s no surprise that conservative outside groups are ramping up their ad spending as November approaches. Counting spots released last Friday afternoon, we fact-checked 36 conservative attack ads this week, our highest one-week tally yet. The large total was driven by an increased focus on House races, which accounted for two-thirds of the ads we answered.

Once again, Karl Rove’s groups dominated the airwaves. As it does most weeks, American Crossroads issued a new attack on President Obama, this one attempting to undermine clear signs that the economy is picking up. Meanwhile, Crossroads GPS targeted eight House candidates go to along with six Senate candidates, which notably included Maine independent Angus King.

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Club for Growth Action: “Lobster”

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The Club for Growth accuses Indiana Senate candidate Joe Donnelly (D) of supporting wasteful spending, citing a series of amendments to appropriations bills that would have banned spending on individual projects. But Donnelly’s vote against banning money for the projects was backed up by vast bipartisan majorities in the House. Furthermore, Donnelly has voted in favor of a balanced budget amendment, and it was Bush-era policies and the recession that drove up deficits, not earmarks.

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The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

We checked 26 new attack ads in the last week, including a trio that appeared late last Friday afternoon. The heavy volume makes sense given that the campaign is entering the home stretch, and it was powered by 15 new U.S. Chamber of Commerce ads, all of them in House races. Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS (3 ads) and American Crossroads (2) combined to come in a distant second, and the remaining six came from the arch-conservative Club for Growth, the anti-immigration obsessives at NumbersUSA, the Iowa-based American Future Fund, Restore Our Future, and the abortion-focused Susan B. Anthony List’s new “Women Speak Out PAC.”

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Club For Growth Action: “Know”

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Club for Growth Action claims that former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who is running for the Senate in Arizona, “has no problem with raising taxes.” But the conservative group’s claim relies on an out-of-context quote, in which Carmona explained that he would support repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as long as “you protect the middle and lower class.” According to nonpartisan analysts, ending tax breaks for top earners would reduce the deficit without harming the economy.

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Club For Growth Action: “Jobs”

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Club for Growth Action accuses Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) of supporting “higher taxes, government health care, and trillions in new debt,” but the conservative group provides no evidence for its allegations. That may be because the charges against Donnelly don’t match his record. Donnelly recently voted to extend tax cuts for all Americans, while the Affordable Care Act expands private-sector health coverage and reduces deficits. Furthermore, Donnelly has supported conservative proposals for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

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The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

As the nation turned its attention to the Democratic National Convention, conservative groups were again relatively quiet on the airwaves. We fact checked six television ads, including two extremely misleading attacks on Democratic candidates from the Adelson-funded YG Action Fund. In addition, Americans for Prosperity released an ad falsely comparing the Affordable Care Act to Canada’s single-payer health care system, Crossroads GPS continued its assault on North Dakota Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp, and the Club for Growth shifted its focus from Republican primaries to the general election.

30 Months, 4.6 Million Private-Sector Jobs

American Crossroads countered the convention with an ad blasting President Obama’s economic record and suggesting that he has taken the country “backward.” In fact, the economy now has gained 4.6 million private-sector jobs in the last 30 months, but government employment continues to shrink, restraining the overall recovery. The following chart shows the accumulation of private-sector job gains and public-sector job losses since the recession officially ended in June 2009:

pub-priv-jobs-jul2

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Club For Growth Action: “Typical”

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An ad from Club for Growth Action portrays Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) as a “typical Washington liberal,” citing his support for President Bush’s bank bailout, the “failed” stimulus, and the “government takeover of health care.” However, the financial rescue and the Recovery Act both helped the nation avert a more severe economic collapse, while the Affordable Care Act relies on private insurance companies to extend coverage. Despite the ad’s attempt to cast him as a hardcore partisan, Donnelly has the eighth most independent voting record among representatives in the current Congress.

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Fiscal Frauds: Conservatives Support Policies That Blew Up The Debt

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From the Heritage Foundation to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to purely political organizations like FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth, nearly the entire infrastructure of the right criticizes President Obama for the current state of our national debt. It is instructive to look back on these groups’ positions on the two primary drivers of both recent and future deficits: President Bush’s tax cuts and the expansion of the war on terror to Iraq. AEI, Heritage, and the Hoover Institution may be debt hawks now, but their roles in pushing the costly and misguided invasion of Iraq began almost before the wreckage was cleared at Ground Zero in New York City. And while it’s unremarkable that conservative institutions would support reducing taxes, the promises made in debate over the Bush tax cuts by Heritage, Americans for Tax Reform, and the like fly in the face of their current griping about our indebtedness.

Conservative Institutions Blame President Obama’s “Spending Binge” For Rising Debt

HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Heritage Foundation Decries Obama’s “Vision” Of “Deeper Deficits.” From the Heritage Foundation’s response to President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2013: “The Administration’s apparent vision is one of bigger government, more spending, higher taxes, and deeper deficits. At a time when runaway spending and swelling deficits must be reversed, President Obama increases both.” [Heritage.org, 2/28/12]

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