The Jerry McNerney Campaign and the DCCC recently sent out a mailers attacking his opponent David Harmer for signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which commits Harmer to opposing and voting against income tax hikes.   By attacking the Pledge, McNerney and the DCCC are deliberately trying to mislead the voters of the CA-11 about the firm and laudable commitment Harmer has made to taxpayers.  It is no surprise that McNerney is touting a line similar to other Democrats across the country who are desperate to distract voters from their dismal economic record. 

The McNerney and DCCC line of attack is bizarre at best and a blatant lie at worst.  The Taxpayer Protection Pledge has existed for over twenty years.  It was specifically designed to protect taxpayers and businesses from higher taxes and to promote revenue-neutral tax reform.  The Pledge doesn’t protect any particular deduction or credit.  It simply protects against tax hikes – it holds your congressman accountable to you, the taxpayer.  A number of new sources have already discredited this line of attack.  The nonpartisan, nonprofit FactCheck.org called the attacks against the Pledge “blatantly false” while Jon Ralston of the TV program Face to Face in Nevada characterized a similar attack as “totally misleading.”  The Associated Press recently reviewed similar attacks finding them false, AP stating, “The pledge, from Americans for Tax Reform, makes no promise to protect these companies.  It says nothing about jobs.  It’s a pledge to oppose tax increases.”

Taxpayers aren’t interested in distortions of a candidate’s record and obvious attempts to distract from economic reality.  With the unemployment rate over 9 percent for its seventeenth consecutive month, voters want to hear about solutions that promote job growth and economic activity.

Jerry McNerney Campaign Caught Telling Lies about the “No New Taxes” Pledge

McNerney campaign desperate to distort Harmer’s “no new taxes” promise

WASHINGTON, DCThe Jerry McNerney Campaign recently launched a new line of attack on David Harmer by attempting to mislead voters about the actual meaning of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. The goal of the Pledge is to protect taxpayers and businesses from tax increases. The McNerney campaign’s charges follow the patently false claims made by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) earlier in the year – claims that the non-partisan FactCheck.org agrees are “blatantly false.”

The “No New Taxes” Pledge commits a signer to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses and oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.” By making this promise, Harmer has taken tax hikes off the table for all taxpayers in California- something Jerry McNerney has not done.

This is not the first time Democrats have tried to misrepresent the meaning of the Pledge. During the special election in HI-01, the DCCC ran misleading attack ads against the Pledge. FactCheck.org, a non-partisan "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics, responded by condemning the DCCC and agreeing that the ads were “blatantly false.”

Similar claims about the Pledge were made recently in Michigan, Nevada, and Washington. In Michigan, the Jackson Citizen-Patriot, a Jackson, Michigan newspaper, deemed Rep. Mark Schauer’s claims about the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and Tim Walberg to be “not true.”  In Nevada, Jon Ralston of Face to Face “reality checked” the Dina Titus campaign ad and found the claims made against the “no new taxes” Pledge to be “totally misleading.” King 5 TV in Washington called the accusations against the Pledge and senate candidate Dino Rossi a “stretch.”

“Why is Jerry McNerney going out of his way to shamelessly distort David Harmer’s position on taxes? The Pledge signed by Harmer is a promise to constituents and businesses to never raise taxes. McNerney has yet to make the same promise and should explain to voters how tax hikes revive a struggling economy and promote job growth in California,” said ATR President Grover Norquist.

“David Harmer has committed to never raising taxes on his constituents while his Democrat opponent has left the door for tax hikes wide open,” continued Norquist.

Click here for the PDF.