Marathon Pundit: MI 1: Dems standing behind misleading ad

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

MI 1: Dems standing behind misleading ad

Showing their desperation, the Democrats are running misleading ads that are so egregious that they may backfire. For instance, as I wrote yesterday in this space, they are accusing Dan Benishek, the Republican candidate for Congress in Michigan's 1st District, of supporting a tax increase because he has mused about the FairTax, a national sales tax that would replace the federal income tax.

It's a distortion if not an outright lie--and the Democrats are standing behind it. So I want to elaborate on my earlier post,

First the falsehood, from The Hill:

"What Republican candidates don't want you to know is that if they had their way, they'd slap middle-class families with a 23 percent national sales tax-hike on almost everything you buy — cars, clothes, groceries, even medicine," DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer said, adding the tax is "simply wrong for middle-class families, and Republicans shouldn’t be surprised when it’s rejected in November."

Wrong!

FactCheck.org has slammed the unfair FairTax ads:

"Democrats are accusing Republicans of supporting a 23 percent sales tax on everything, which would be on top of all existing taxes… it’s misrepresenting by omission of the FairTax idea," FactCheck.org director Brooks Jackson told The Hill.