Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) began airing television ads in Nevada’s Third Congressional District recently in response to false claims made by the Dina Titus for Congress campaign about the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. ATR will spend over $600,000 in the coming weeks in Nevada’s 3rd district alone, in order to inform voters about Titus’ tax-hiking record and to correct the claims made against the “no new taxes” Pledge.
The accusations by the Titus campaign mirror the misleading charges 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, Heck has taken tax hikes off the table — something Dina Titus has not done.
This is not the first time Democrats have tried to misrepresent the meaning of the Pledge. Democrats including the DCCC have wrongly attacked Pledge signers in HI-01, WI-07, WA-02, and WA-03.
Jon Ralston of the public affairs show Face to Face on KSNV Channel 3 fact checked the ad during a segment of the show. Ralston found the claims made by the Titus campaign to be "thoroughly misleading." TheJackson Citizen-Patriot, a Jackson, MI newspaper, also found the claims made by Rep. Mark Schauer against the Pledge to be “not true.”
The following is an excerpt from the television ad, “Dina Titus attacks people for promising not to raise taxes. But it’s just more negative ads to hide her liberal record…And Titus’s attack has been called ‘thoroughly misleading’ and ‘blatantly false’ The facts? Titus voted for higher taxes…And for the failed $787 billion stimulus…”