this election is about "saving our country" [View all]

[hfojvt]

according to the latest Akin ad.

I happen to agree with that, but what our country really needs to be saved from is liars like Todd Akin.

Akin says that McCaskill voted for "Obama's budget busting stimulus".

Akin must know that the stimulus was hardly budget busting. Most of the deficit, other than the parts that came from the Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars and the Bush medicare prescription drug plan, came from the Bush recession, which the stimulus helped to end http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002908833

Also, Akin voted FOR the Camp amendment to replace the stimulus spending with tax cuts. Something that would have busted the budget just as much (or as little) as the Obama stimulus, and it would have been less effective as a stimulus http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2354

"Economists generally agree that a tax cut designed like the proposal to lower the bottom two rates, which misses many lower-income households and gives its biggest benefits to upper-income households, is not very effective at stimulating the economy.

As the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has stated, “[individual] income tax cuts directed at lower income individuals will likely have a larger effect than cuts directed at higher income individuals, other things equal. This distributional effect suggests that the most effective tax cut would be a rebate which is not only a flat amount but specifically directed at lower income individuals (who did not have tax liability).”[10] The GOP tax cut achieves the opposite of the CRS recommendation.

Similarly, the Congressional Budget Office has commented that “[across-the-board] reductions in income tax rates have the disadvantage of placing much more of the tax reduction in the hands of upper-income taxpayers, who, although they have a much larger tax liability, are less likely to spend the additional money.”

Akin surely knows that, or should, but he lies to the public anyway.

Akin also says that McCaskill voted to raise taxes. I am not sure what vote he is talking about. That may even be true, but Akin himself also voted to raise taxes. When he voted for HR 4853, he voted to raise taxes on the poorest 20% by about $3 billion as noted on page 3 here http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxcompromise2010.pdf

That was a tax "compromise" that Obama agreed to Republican demands to continue "budget busting" tax cuts for the rich. One which gave $108 billion in tax cuts to the richest 1% even while increasing taxes on the poorest 1%.

So, yeah, this election IS about saving our country. Saving it from people like Todd Akin who would give it lock, stock and barrel to the richest 1%.