Is the Club for Growth Ad True?

The Spokesman Review has a story on Project Vote Smart’s reaction to the Club for Growth Ads. They’re none too happy:

Adelaide Kimball, a board member and senior adviser at Montana-based Project Vote Smart, said of the new anti-Grant ad, “They attack this candidate and completely misrepresent his responses.”

The Club for Growth’s anti-Grant ad claims that Grant told Project Vote Smart that he would “keep the death tax” and “increase welfare spending.” No questions with that wording are in the Vote Smart survey. Grant did say in the survey that he wants to “revamp estate tax to make it more fair” and that he favored increasing funding for child-care programs and housing assistance.

Let’s do a quick inventory of the Ad and its claim:

Claim 1:

Increase the Payroll Tax

True:

Grant answers this question as follows:

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding Social Security.

d) Increase the payroll tax to better finance Social Security in its current form.

f) Raise the retirement age for individual eligibility to receive full Social Security benefits.

Keep the Death Tax

True:

Grant answers the question:

“Do you support the permanent repeal of the federal estate tax?” with “no”

“The Death Tax” is a nickname for the “Estate Tax.” If you don’t want to get rid of it, you want to keep it.

Increase Welfare Spending

False:

Grant answered the question of what he thought should be done on Welfare spending with “maintain status.” Honestly, I don’t know where Club for Growth got this one, but it wasn’t Project Vote Smart. I’m shocked though that the Project Vote Smart claimed no question had that word when it explicitly asked where the candidate stood on welfare spending.

I goofed. This one is factual.

Raise the Social Security Retirement Age

Now, Project Vote Smart has a legitimate concern here. People don’t want to send in questionaires if they are going to be used for negative ads. That’s tough, you can’t limit the use of information and they shouldn’t distort the degree of the ad’s incorrect statements.

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