Organizations: Crossroads GPS

Crossroads GPS: “Vision” IN-02

adcheck •

In identical ads hitting congressional candidate Brendan Mullen (D-IN) and three other Democratic House candidates in California, Illinois, and Michigan, Crossroads GPS levels a series of falsehoods about the Affordable Care Act, which all four candidates support. Despite the ad’s claims, the health care law reduces future Medicare spending without cutting seniors’ current benefits, it helps control rising costs, and it’s expected to expand insurance coverage – all without taking health care decisions away from individuals or raising taxes on most Americans.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Silly Spending” NY-01

adcheck •

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.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Silly Spending” NY-25

adcheck •

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.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Silly Spending” IA-03

adcheck •

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.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Vision”

adcheck •

In an ad accusing Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) of casting votes that ‘cost Ohio jobs,’ Crossroads GPS misrepresents the American Jobs Act, the Affordable Care Act, and Brown’s vote to end the Bush tax cuts for top earners. The American Jobs Act would have boosted employment and GDP while cutting payroll taxes for workers and employers, paid for with a surtax only on millionaires, but all the ad says is that it’s a “tax increase.” To help pay for expanding coverage, the Affordable Care Act levies a small tax on medical device manufacturers, who are likely to see increased business thanks to the law. And the “new small business tax” is no such thing: Brown voted to preserve tax breaks for the middle class while ending them for top earners, few of whom are real “small businesses.”

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Stamp For Him”

adcheck •

Crossroads GPS’ attempt to portray Heidi Heitkamp as “an Obama rubber stamp” wildly misreprents the health care law’s budget impact and Heitkamp’s position on the individual mandate. In reality, the Affordable Care Act reduces deficits, and Heitkamp has repeatedly stated that she would prefer the law without the individual mandate.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Looming”

adcheck •

An ad from Crossroads GPS attacks Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine (D) over his support for last year’s deal to raise the debt ceiling, which created the deficit reduction super committee and imposed defense cuts as an incentive for members to find a compromise. The super committee failed, and GPS blames Kaine for upcoming defense cuts, which could impact Virginia-based defense industry jobs particularly hard. But Kaine supported the debt ceiling deal because it was necessary to avoid devastating economic default, and he has laid out a plan to avoid the impending defense cuts.

Read more after the jump.

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.”

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Heart”

adcheck •

An ad from Crossroads GPS claims that Senate candidate Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) support for cap-and-trade policies in general translates into support for a “scheme” that would increase energy costs for small businesses and result in 50,000 job losses. But Kaine didn’t endorse a specific policy, and GPS itself can’t settle on one proposal, cherry-picking the worst estimates of two different bills. One of those bills would have boosted the economy with little additional cost to consumers, and the other allowed small businesses’ utility costs to be offset with money from the sale of emissions allowances.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Severe”

adcheck •

Crossroads GPS simultaneously misquotes Heidi Heitkamp and takes her comments so far out of context that they end up 180 degrees opposite her actual position. The ad falsely implies Heitkamp wishes the individual mandate (characterized here as “Obamacare’s tax on middle-class families”) were enforced with a larger penalty. In fact, Heitkamp opposes the mandate, and was relaying information from insurance experts who’d told her the size of the mandate penalty would render it ineffective.

Read more after the jump.