First, it was “make it in America,” a push by Democrats to highlight legislative proposals like “cash for clunkers” that Dems say have kept American jobs in America.
Then, the strategy took a dark turn when the entire Democratic Party, led by the president, accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of using sinister, foreign money sent by foreigners from overseas to sway American campaigns, despite providing no evidence this was the case.
Now, Democrats are volleying their most desperate attack in this vein yet: that opposing tax increases is tantamount to supporting outsourcing American jobs “to places like China and India.”
In a series of new advertisements for congressional races across the country, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is attacking Republicans for signing the Americans for Tax Reform pledge not to increase taxes.
“She signed a pledge that protected tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, to places like China, and India,” one ad says.
FactCheck.org declared the ads “false” and “a faulty argument.”
But what is the argument, anyway?
The ATR pledge requires candidates to oppose “any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses” as well as “any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”
ATR called the ads “blatantly false” and noted that their pledge allows for changing the tax code, so long as the changes don’t constitute a tax increase overall.
At issue, specifically, are Democratic proposals to close tax “loopholes” they say create an incentive for companies to outsource jobs.
As FactCheck.org notes, the portions of the tax code in question have a minimal impact on employment.
Further, ATR, in its notice to lawmakers regarding the votes, specifically argues that enacting the “tax increases” at issue would encourage outsourcing. In other words, ATR opposes exactly that which they are accused of supporting, according to their notice.
A spokesman for the DCCC, Ryan Rudominer, defended the advertisements, saying that each time proposals to close these “loopholes” came to a vote, ATR cited the pledge in urging lawmakers not to vote for the bill.
“Each time the House has voted to close tax loopholes for corporations that ship American jobs overseas, Americans for Tax Reform has explicitly stated that voting to do so was a violation of their Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” Rudominer said.
But even with persistent questioning from The Daily Caller, Rudominer could not explain the DCCC’s rationale for conflating opposition to tax increases with support for specific tax “loopholes.”
“They said in their releases that they were against the bills specifically because it closed the loopholes,” Rudominer said. Indeed, ATR did. However, the “loopholes” in question were not at issue in regard to the pledge, the overall tax increase was.
