U.S. Senate candidate Angus King has a new television ad airing in Maine where he attacks his Republican opponent Charlie Summers for signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. In the ad, King recycles a disingenuous attack against the Pledge. King’s recent decline in the polls may account for his new stance on going negative.
In the ad, which can be seen here, Angus King claims, “Charlie signed a no-taxes-ever pledge that will make it impossible to solve the deficit.”
As Roll Call pointed out, King is referencing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a promise made to Maine taxpayers to oppose higher net taxes. Had King read the Pledge, he would know that as a signer, Charlie Summers has promised to oppose net tax hikes. To claim that such a stance makes it impossible to solve the deficit is simply untrue.
Pledge signers take tax hikes off the table so that they can you focus on Washington’s real problem: overspending. Congress absolutely can solve the deficit without raising taxes. They can do it by cutting spending and implementing pro-growth policies that do not punish job creators with higher taxes.
King goes on to note that he wants “to bring common sense to the budget.” As Americans for Tax Reform has pointed out, what King means by “common sense” is higher taxes. As a supporter of the Simpson-Bowles tax hike plan, King supports trillions of dollars in higher taxes. That isn’t what many Mainers would call a “new independent direction.”
“The Taxpayer Protection Pledge is a promise to take higher taxes off the table so that you can come together and address Washington’s true problem: overspending,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “As a supporter of the multi-trillion dollar Simpson-Bowles tax hike plan, Angus King should start telling the truth about the kind of ‘direction’ he’s going to bring to Washington. At the end of the day, when it comes to taxes, King stands with national Democrats like Harry Reid and President Obama.”