Chet Edward’s campaign recently sent out a mailer attacking Bill Flores for signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which commits him to opposing and voting against income tax hikes. By attacking the Pledge, Edwards is deliberately misleading the voters of TX-17 about the laudable commitment Flores has made to taxpayers. It’s no surprise Edwards is touting the same line as other Democrats across the country who are desperate to distract voters from their dismal economic record

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. A number of new sources have already discredited this line of attack. The nonpartisan, nonprofit FactCheck.org called 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 on 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.

To read ATR’s official statement on Edward’s misleading attacks on the Pledge; click “read more.”

Chet Edwards Campaign Caught Telling Lies about the “No New Taxes” Pledge
Edwards campaign desperate to distort Flores’s “no new taxes” promise

WASHINGTON, DCThe Chet Edwards Campaign recently launched a new line of attack on Bill Flores 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 Edwards 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, Flores has taken tax hikes off the table for all taxpayers in Texas- something Chet Edwards 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 condemningthe 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 Chet Edwards going out of his way to shamelessly distort Bill Flores’s position on taxes? The Pledge signed by Flores is a promise to constituents and businesses to never raise taxes. Edwards has yet to make the same promise and should explain to voters how tax hikes revive a struggling economy and promote job growth in Texas,” said ATR President Grover Norquist.

“Bill Flores 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 printable pdf of the release.