Democrat Bill Owens’ campaign recently made a feeble attempt to distract voters in his 2012 reelection bid by issuing misleading statements about the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and U.S. job outsourcing. By attacking Republicans who have signed the Pledge, Owens’ efforts mirror his 2010 failed struggle to downplay the importance of promising taxpayers to oppose higher taxes, a promise Owens will not make.

In 2010, the non-partisan FactCheck.org rated the attacks against the Pledge as “blatantly false.” Bill Owens may have evolved on his 2010 attempted attack by subtly hinting that he won’t sign the Pledge because “he believes we should eliminate tax loopholes for companies who ship jobs overseas.” Unfortunately for Owens, the Associated Press rated his last attack as “one of the wildest claims of the 2010 campaign.

As FactCheck.org has noted: [The Pledge] leaves ample room for the elimination of any number of special tax breaks so long as the overall level of taxation is not increased. To claim that this “protects” a particular provision is simply untrue. The overall goal of Pledge signers is to reduce the size of the government by focusing on spending alone.

This is a goal that Bill Owens fundamentally opposes, as is evident by his voting record. Having voted for Obamacare, which adds $1.76 trillion dollars to the federal deficit while increasing taxes by more than $500 billion over the next decade, Owens has never demonstrated an interest in standing with taxpayers and against Washington’s special spending interests.

“I applaud Kellie Greene and Matt Doheny for taking the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Taxpayers in New York have clearly shown their displeasure with tax-and-spend policies coming out of Washington, policies that Bill Owens champions,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “New York taxpayers want real pro-growth solutions to get the economy going again and rein in the irresponsible and reckless spending in Washington,” contined Norquist.

Bill Owens’ latest line of attack is a rehashed and failed attempt to distort the truth about the Pledge, while taking the attention away from the fact that he is a tax-hiker who has no interest in reining in Washington’s out of control overspending problem.”

[PDF of Press Release]