Organizations: Crossroads GPS

Crossroads GPS: “Doing”

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Even though Ohio’s unemployment rate has fallen for 11 straight months, dropping more than 3 percentage points from its recession-driven high, Crossroads GPS suggests that the state’s economy is getting worse and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is responsible. To support its case, the conservative group distorts the facts about two policies Brown supports – health care reform and ending tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans – and attacks him for supposedly backing an energy bill he ultimately opposed out of concern for Ohio jobs.

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Crossroads GPS: “Pledged”

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An ad from Crossroads GPS continues the group’s quest to distort Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine’s record as the state’s governor. The truth is that amid a highly political fight over how to fix Virginia’s transportation issues, Kaine proposed to raise revenue while Republicans wanted to borrow more money. When the recession hit, Virginia’s revenues dropped off, but Kaine cut billions and finished each two-year budget cycle with the books balanced. And Kaine didn’t, as the ad states, pledge “no new taxes” – he pledged to keep tax increases designed to fund transportation upgrades from being used to plug other budgetary holes.

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Crossroads GPS: “Cost You”

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Crossroads GPS starts its latest attack on Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) by asking why the debt has increased since Jon Tester took office, and then provides all the wrong answers. Contrary to the ad’s claims, Bush policies and the recession have driven the increase in debt since Tester took office, and the Affordable Care Act actually reduces deficits. Crossroads also misrepresents Tester’s vote to extend middle-class tax cuts as a ‘tax hike’ on small businesses.

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Crossroads GPS: “No Dice”

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Crossroads GPS accuses Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) of supporting “billions in wasted spending projects that didn’t help Missouri,” citing as evidence Recovery Act grants that went to California, Vermont, and Texas. However, those three projects cost less than $30 million combined, and the Recovery Act funds were distributed all across the country to help turn the economy around. The ad further misleads by blaming McCaskill, instead of costly Bush policies and the recession, for driving up the debt.

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Crossroads GPS: “Hiding Taxes”/”Pay Raises”

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A reissued ad from Crossroads GPS abandons the plainly false claim that former Heidi Heitkamp “spent taxpayer dollars on private planes” as North Dakota’s Attorney General, replacing it with the equally disingenuous phrase “allowed staff to fly a taxpayer-funded plane.” But the very article cited in the ad explains that the planes were used for drug enforcement – not the stylish travel GPS implies even after admitting the initial lie about Heitkamp spending money on the aircraft. In addition, the ad misleads on pay raises given underpaid attorneys in Heitkamp’s office, positions she took on car insurance and coal taxes in the ’90s, and her 2012 position on taxes.

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Crossroads GPS: “Sense”

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Crossroads GPS uses Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s vote in favor of the Middle Class Tax Cut Act to accuse him of supporting tax hikes on Montana families and small businesses. In reality, Tester’s vote supported an extension of the Bush tax cuts for all income up to $200,000. Those earning more than that – approximately the top 1.4 percent of households – are, contrary to Crossroads’ suggestion, very rarely actual small businesses. Crossroads’ other evidence for Tester’s supposed habit of hiking taxes is the health care law, which won’t increase taxes for the majority of Americans.

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Crossroads GPS: “Holes”

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Crossroads GPS attempts to take Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine to task for both ‘soaring spending’ and ‘devastating’ cuts to spending on higher education during Kaine’s tenure as the state’s governor. But the budgetary reality of Kaine’s tenure was largely determined by the foibles of the global economy, which saw Kaine into office during a period of strength before enduring a massive recession that devastated state revenues and forced the governor and the legislature to make tough decisions about cuts. Ultimately, Kaine balanced every budget during his tenure.

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Crossroads GPS: “People Over Government”

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Crossroads GPS is attacking Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) over taxes, attempting to cast her support for ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as a determination to increase taxes on small businesses. But what McCaskill has actually “voted repeatedly” to do is to cut everyone’s taxes on their first $200,000 of income, and to revert to Clinton-era rates on the 1.4 percent of Americans who earn enough to benefit from the top-end Bush tax cuts. In addition to the standard conservative conflation of rich people and small businesses, the GPS ad misleads about the tax impact of health care reform, and implies that it’s McCaskill, and not a massive global economic crisis, that’s hurt Missouri’s manufacturers.

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Crossroads GPS: “News”

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Crossroads GPS attacks President Obama’s economic record with a clip of a CBS News report stating that “this is the worst economic recovery America has ever had.” Blaming the president for high unemployment, the ad fails to acknowledge the severity of the Bush recession, which caused the economy to continue to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the first months of the Obama administration, and the GOP-favored public-sector downsizing that’s led to government layoffs. Far from ‘failing,’ the Recovery Act helped avert an even more severe economic collapse.

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Crossroads GPS: “Hiding”

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Crossroads GPS criticizes North Dakota Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp for supporting the Affordable Care Act, even though, according to the ad, the “Supreme Court ruled Obamacare is a massive increase on working families.” Of course, while the Supreme Court ruled that the law’s requirement that people obtain health insurance or pay a small penalty is constitutional under Congress’ taxing power, the decision did not say anything about how the provision would affect working families. In reality, the Affordable Care Act does not directly raise taxes on most working Americans, and it will actually provide tax relief for millions. The ad also misleads on the law’s Medicare savings – which do not ‘cut’ seniors’ benefits – while failing to mention that Heitkamp’s opponent voted to preserve nearly all of those spending reductions.

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