Tim Walberg recently came under attack from the Mark Schauer Campaign for promising to take tax hikes off the table. The Schauer Campaign issued a press release trying to deliberately mislead voters on the meaning of the “No New Taxes” Pledge. This same attack was tried earlier in the year during the HI-01 special election.
FactCheck.org’s Director Brooks Jackson wrote the following about Democrats’ attempt to distort the intention of the Pledge:
We find the ad to be false. The pledge only protects corporations from an increase in taxation overall. It explicitly allows elimination of any specific tax deduction or credit if matched dollar-for-dollar by an overall cut in rates. And it says nothing about jobs…This attack ad is false.
To read ATR’s official statement on Schauer’s attempts to mislead voters on the meaning of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, click read more.
Schauer Campaign Launches Patently False Attack on Tim Walberg
Democrats try to distort Walberg’s “no new taxes” promiseWashington, DC- The Schauer for Congress Campaign recently issued a deliberately false attack on Republican Tim Walberg for signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform. 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, Walberg has taken tax hikes off the table. This is something Schauer has yet to do by refusing to make this commitment.
This is not the first time Democrats have tried this line of attack on signers of the Pledge. During the special election in HI-01, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ran misleading attack ads against the Pledge. FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics, issued a statement condemning the DCCC and agreeing with ATR’s position that the ads were “blatantly false.”
“Democrats are desperate to take voters’ eyes off of their dismal performance as stewards of our economy. That’s why they continue to roll out this disturbingly false claim about candidates and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Quite simply, there has been no improvement in the economy or in job growth since Democrats took over. They have nothing to show for themselves in the run up to November,” said ATR President Grover Norquist.
The idea behind the Taxpayer Protection Pledge is to protect against tax increases and to promote revenue neutral tax reform. This is a concept that Democrats fail to understand as they continue to betray voters trust on the issue of taxes.
"If Democrats were so determined to promote tax reform, why do they always insist on eliminating deductions or credits without lowering rates? What Democrats truly want is higher taxes and to send more of taxpayers’ hard earned money to the federal government. They’re trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes with this argument,” continued Norquist.
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