Organizations: Crossroads GPS

Crossroads GPS: “Mountain”

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Crossroads GPS attacks Rep. Tammy Baldwin for opposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which it says would “stop the mounting national debt that threatens Wisconsin’s economy.” However, by forcing the government to make additional cuts any time the economy slumps and revenues fall, the balanced budget amendment would make future recessions even more severe. Meanwhile, the rising debt during Baldwin’s tenure has been fueled by President Bush’s policies, including costly tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that Baldwin opposed.

Read more after the jump.

The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

Earlier this week, Crossroads GPS made the unusual decision to pull its support from a competitive Senate race, dropping planned ads attacking Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill after tasteless comments on “legitimate rape” from her Republican opponent, Todd Akin, made headlines. The group’s multi-million-dollar assault on the airwaves continued across other states, however. Of the 13 ads we fact-checked this week, Crossroads GPS was responsible for five of them, attacking Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Bill Nelson in Florida, Martin Heinrich in New Mexico, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Jon Tester in Montana. We also looked at three ads from Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, three from the American Future Fund, one from the National Federation of Independent Business, and one from pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future.Most of the spots mentioned the Affordable Care Act, with many misrepresenting the facts to sell support for the law as support for a budget-busting behemoth. All three American Future Fund ads referred to the “$2 trillion health care law,” a willful distortion that counts the law’s costs but none of the savings to obscure the fact that the law reduces the deficit. Five of the ads (three from Crossroads GPS, one from AFP, and one from Restore Our Future) spread misinformation about the “failed” or “wasteful” stimulus, which actually helped save the economy from an even deeper recession.

Focus On Florida

This week showed particularly heavy interest in the Florida Senate race between Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Connie Mack. Three separate conservative outside groups targeted the Sunshine State, each ad taking a different tack. Crossroads GPS took advantage of public confusion over the Affordable Care Act’s impact on Medicare, dishonestly suggesting to Florida’s seniors that their benefits will be cut and they’ll lose control of their health care decisions. American Future Fund focused on the national debt, though it also mentioned the health care law and threw in a gratuitous line calling for Nelson to “protect seniors.” NFIB, a business group that received $3.7 million from Crossroads GPS in 2010, took a more personal approach, highlighting a Florida business owner who claimed that a “conglomeration” of regulations were impairing his businesses’ ability to grow.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Channel”

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An ad from Crossroads GPS hits Sen. Sherrod Brown with a series of misleading insinuations, suggesting that Brown approved of a “health care takeover” and job-killing taxes on Ohio businesses. But the health care law relies on the private sector, and neither it nor Brown’s most recent vote for the Middle Class Tax Relief Act raise taxes for most Americans. What’s more, the Recovery Act didn’t ‘fail – it helped keep the recession that killed millions of jobs from being even worse.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “More Martin Spending”

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Crossroads GPS attacks Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) for supporting the Recovery Act, implying that the “failed stimulus” – and not the devastating recession that was well underway when Heinrich took office – is responsible for job losses in New Mexico. However, the Recovery Act created jobs and cut taxes for millions of Americans, while New Mexico’s unemployment rate has fallen almost 1.5 percentage points from its recession-driven high.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Suffered”

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Crossroads GPS accuses Sen. Bill Nelson of “hurting Florida’s seniors” by supporting the Affordable Care Act, which the ad says “cuts Medicare spending by $700 billion.” However, while the health care law does reduce the future growth of Medicare spending, it does not cut seniors’ benefits – and Nelson’s opponent, Rep. Connie Mack, voted for the same savings last year when he backed the GOP budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan. The health care law also benefits seniors by closing the “donut hole” and providing free preventive care, while repealing the Affordable Care Act would hasten Medicare’s insolvency and have negative consequences for millions of Americans.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Every Single Day”

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An ad from Crossroads GPS attacks Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) over the national debt, suggesting that he’s to blame even though it was Bush-era policies and the recession that drove up spending and decreased revenues. The Recovery Act helped prevent an even worse recession, and the “budget-busting” health care law actually reduces the deficits. Moreover, a vote against raising the debt ceiling wouldn’t keep down debt – it would have prevented the U.S. from paying bills it had already incurred and risked economic catastrophe.

Read more after the jump.

The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

propublica-darkmoney-813On Monday we learned that just two conservative nonprofits have spent more on television ads in the presidential race than every super PAC combined. ProPublica’s tally of advertising data shows that Americans for Prosperity and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS have aired a combined $59.9 million in “ads mentioning a candidate for president.”

There is plenty of action further down the ticket as well. Of the 14 ads Bridge Project fact checked in the last week, just two targeted President Obama. Eight came from Crossroads GPS, three from the 60 Plus Association (on which more below), two from AFP, and one from the Romney super PAC Restore Our Future. AFP’s ads (one in the Wisconsin Senate race, the other an explicit recommendation against voting for Obama) focused on debt and the health care law. The debt – and dishonest claims about its sources – were the focus of three of Crossroads GPS’ ads, while multiple ads disingenuously accused senators of voting to tax small businesses. A pair of Crossroads GPS ads in the Virginia Senate contest misrepresented Tim Kaine’s record as governor and his stance on defense spending.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Forgot”

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Crossroads GPS once again attempts to portray Heidi Heitkamp as corrupt, this time in an ad that relies on citations from a right-wing radio host’s website and a Rupert Murdoch-owned editorial page. Crossroads claims Heitkamp engaged in a “pay to play” scheme with “an out-of-state trial lawyer,” but the reality is both less interesting and less insidious than Crossroads suggests. Heitkamp and several other state attorneys general negotiated a multi-state settlement with tobacco companies following years of litigation conducted by private law firms. Those firms did not charge up front for thousands of hours and millions in costs, in exchange for a percentage of any payout they succeeded in winning for the states. Heitkamp’s office did not pay attorney Jack McConnell for his work on the settlement, but he receives a portion of the percentage the states agreed to pay his firm. And while GPS’ biased source claims she ducked questions about the matter, Heitkamp was quite willing to speak to reporters at an actual newspaper in the state.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “With A T”

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Crossroads GPS is running an ad in Wisconsin, titled “With A T,” emphasizing the trillions of dollars added to the national debt since Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) took office. But while Crossroads focuses on Baldwin’s support for the “failed” Recovery Act, which helped prevent an even more devastating economic collapse, President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and the recession fueled the increase in debt over the last decade. As a member of the House, Baldwin voted against the tax cuts Bush passed in 2001 and 2003.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Cost”

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A Crossroads GPS ad attacks Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine for supporting the sequestration defense cuts, but Kaine has made it clear that he wants to find a deal to avoid the cuts and has even laid out a specific proposal. In reality, the deal Kaine supported was a bipartisan plan to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default on our loans – a deal that also created a committee to propose a deficit reduction strategy and imposed sequestration as an incentive to avoid failure. That panel ultimately failed because its Republican members refused to consider tax increases, even after Democrats offered several concessions on spending cuts.

Read more after the jump.