Attack Ad 1: Deceitful

Remember this little gem from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees? (AFSCME)



This ad claims that 129,300 jobs were lost due to bad foreign trade deals.

When inspecting the Economic Policy Institute article the ad references (.pdf), I discovered a few interesting quotes:

"Currency manipulation and other unfair trade policies are
important causes of U.S. non-oil trade deficits. They are responsible,
in part, for the growth of offshore outsourcing by
U.S. manufacturers..."

Also:

"In addition to manipulating its currency to gain unfair
trade advantage, China also competes unfairly through
extensive suppression of labor rights and widespread export
subsidies (AFL-CIO 2006; Haley 2008)."

This article also mentions that the falling Dollar and strengthening Euro are also a big factor in the trade deficit.

HR 4520, or House Vote 259 in the attack ad, is an Omnibus bill. That means that the bill wasn't just a bill on tax breaks for outsourcing corporations, in fact, the bill was named "American Jobs Creation Act." It was meant to save money via tax breaks for all types of businesses so that American jobs stayed in America.

Let's look at this logically

1. If U.S. manufacturers are losing money, they will outsource jobs.

2. Roy Blunt voted for multiple tax breaks for multiple small businesses and larger corporations, which would save these manufacturers a good deal of money.

3. It would follow, at least logically, that since U.S. manufacturers are saving money, they are saving American jobs!

*Do note that there are many many other factors out there that would affect jobs, this is merely a basic formula.

Yet the ad claims that Roy Blunt is making it easier for corporations to outsource and sell out Missouri workers. I am uncertain of what the ad's authors were thinking. Perhaps Roy Blunt is rewarding the corporations for outsourcing? That just seems...illogical.

Of course Roy Blunt gave tax breaks to companies that outsource! How else could he have saved American jobs?

Roy Blunt may have not stopped outsourcing, but he certainly helped to slow it!

I'm done here, this ad has been shot to Hell!

Bag 'em and tag 'em!