Recently, Paul Gosar has come under attack from the Ann Kirkpatrick campaign in AZ-01 for signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which commits a signer to oppose and vote against income tax hikes.

Kirkpatrick isn’t the first Democrat to try this line of attack against the “No New Taxes” Pledge. It began in the special election in HI-01, where Factcheck.org found the claims made against the Pledge to be “blatantly false.” It’s continued in states like Washington where King 5 TV found the claims made by the Patty Murray campaign against the Pledge and Dino Rossi to be “a stretch.” Additionally, Jon Ralston of Face to Face called the accusations made by the Dina Titus campaign against the Pledge to be “thoroughly misleading.” It appears that Democrats haven’t learned their lesson yet. Candidates that take the Taxpayer Protection Pledge should be applauded for their serious commitment to taxpayers and not attacked for it.

To read ATR’s official statement on the Pledge and Kirkpatrick’s faulty claims against it, click “read more.”

Ann Kirkpatrick Campaign Caught Telling Lies about the “No New Taxes” Pledge
Kirkpatrick campaign desperate to distort Gosar’s “no new taxes” promise

WASHINGTON, DCThe Ann Kirkpatrick Campaign recently launched a new line of attack on Paul Gosar 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 Kirkpatrick 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, Gosar has taken tax hikes off the table for all taxpayers in Arizona- something Ann Kirkpatrick 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 “thoroughly misleading.” King 5 TV in Washington called the accusations against the Pledge and senate candidate Dino Rossi to be a “stretch.”

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

“Paul Gosar 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 a pdf copy of the release.