 | Pat Toomey Joe Sestak Pennsylvania Senate Debate 10/20/10 FULL STREAMING VIDEO. Tonight's First Course: Whoppers! (That You Can Expect to Hear from Joe Sestak) Wed, 10/20/2010. |
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Allentown, PA – Tonight, as U.S. Senate candidates Pat Toomey and Joe Sestak debate in Philadelphia, we can expect to hear many of the same tired distortions and falsehoods from Congressman Sestak – many of which have already been debunked and labeled false by independent and nonpartisan entities.
In the interest of efficiency, let’s just put these falsehoods to bed right now.
Joe Sestak’s Top Ten Whoppers
1. FALSEHOOD: Pat Toomey is a Wall Street Lobbyist.
TRUTH: WTAE-TV News declared: “That’s false. Toomey has never been a lobbyist. We checked the records. Toomey is not now, and never was a registered lobbyist.” (WTAE ABC, 09/23/10)
2. FALSEHOOD: Pat Toomey pioneered the derivatives that caused the financial crisis.
TRUTH: FactCheck.Org declared this accusation to be “false,” writing: “Toomey was not dealing in the kind of derivatives that caused the economic crisis.” (Annenberg Political FactCheck Website, 08/17/10)
3. FALSEHOOD: Pat Toomey was not a real small business owner.
TRUTH: Many individuals who have worked with Pat Toomey during his years as a small business owner between 1991 – 1998 have testified to Pat’s daily involvement in the business. During that time, the restaurant business Pat Toomey owned and ran with his brothers was his sole source of income and the business created hundreds of jobs in the Lehigh Valley.
4. FALSEHOOD: Pat Toomey wants to put Social Security at risk by putting it in the stock market.
TRUTH: In Congress, Pat Toomey fought to protect Social Security, sponsoring many pieces of legislation to make sure that big spenders in Washington cannot spend Social Security funds, including the Social Security Protection Act of 2002 (HR 3981). In contrast, Joe Sestak has never sponsored or cosponsored legislation to protect Social Security and has voted for trillions of dollars in deficit spending that is threatening the solvency of Social Security.
5. FALSEHOOD: Pat Toomey voted to throw pay-as-you-go out the window.
TRUTH: Pat Toomey voted for a much stricter version of PayGo than Joe Sestak’s version. Pat voted for the Spending Control act of 2004 which set statutory caps on discretionary spending and instituted pay-as-you-go rules that would require mandatory spending increases to be offset (RC #318, 06/24/04). Congressman Sestak voted against a cap on discretionary spending (RC #611, 07/22/09) and voted for over $1 trillion in PayGo exemptions and waivers.
6. FALSEHOOD: Pat Toomey voted for the largest deficit in our history.
TRUTH: Over his four years in Congress, Joe Sestak voted for $3.3 trillion in new deficit spending. In contrast the cumulative budget deficit over Pat Toomey’s six years in Congress from 1999 – 2005 was $456 billion.
7. FALSEHOOD: Pat Toomey wrote the law to take the referee off the football field and deregulate Wall Street.
TRUTH: FactCheck.Org and President Clinton (who signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley) into law have already said that “The truth is, however, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act had little if anything to do with the current crisis. In fact, economists on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been.” (Annenberg Political FactCheck Website, “Who Caused the Economic Crisis,” 10/01/08) (Business Week, 09/24/09)
8. FALSEHOOD: It made Joe Sestak “sick” to vote for the bailouts.
TRUTH: Right after Congressman Sestak voted to bail out Wall Street (Roll Call #681, 10/03/08), he declared: “I really strongly felt this was the most consequential vote I have taken these two years. And our nation, my constituents, who won’t be able to get affordable loans, whose savings are going to go down, small businesses are going to get loans, unemployment rises—this was a vote for them really” (The Comcast Network, 9/30/08). He then voted to release the second half of the Wall Street bailout funds even though 99 Democrats opposed it (RC #27, 01/22/09) and opposed a bipartisan effort to end TARP after one year (Press Release, 09/26/10).
9. FALSEHOOD: Joe Sestak supports small businesses, while Pat Toomey supports large corporations.
TRUTH: Congressman Sestak has voted for legislation that will cost Pennsylvanians tens of thousands of jobs. These include the cap-and-trade energy tax (RC #477, 06/26/09) that was opposed by 44 democrats, including four Pennsylvania Democrats; the government-run health care bill that would impose billions of dollars in taxes on small businesses (RC #165, 3/21/10); and Card Check legislation (RC #118, 03/01/07) which could lead to the loss of 600,000 jobs (Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs, 03/05/09). There is only one candidate in this race that has been endorsed by the largest association of small businesses – the National Federation of Independent Business – and that is Pat Toomey.
10. FALSEHOOD: Cap-and-trade will create, not cost Pennsylvania jobs.
TRUTH: Many experts have said that the cap-and-trade energy tax will cost Pennsylvania thousands of jobs. According to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, the cap-and-trade bill will have a “profound adverse impact” on the Commonwealth. It will also result in a net loss of as many as 66,000 jobs and a sizable hike in electric bills of residential consumers. (Letter to PA Congressional Delegation, 05/07/09) According to the Beacon Hill Institute, Pennsylvania will lose 47,549 jobs by 2020 and 480,852 by 2050 (The Beacon Hill Institute, June 2009). According to projections by the Energy Information Administration and the nonpartisan CBO, the net effect of the cap-and-trade bill will likely be to slow future job growth (Factcheck.Org, 10/27/09).
TEXT and IMAGE CREDIT: Pat Toomey for U.S. Senate
VIDEO and RESOURCE CREDIT: C-SPAN
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