Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has gone to great lengths in ads — both Web and paid — to discredit the conservative credentials of his Republican primary challenger Matt Bevin. But his attacks have often stretched the truth or outright misled viewers.
A conservative group misleadingly claims Sen. Mitch McConnell “funded the implementation of Obamacare.” McConnell voted to fund the government — including the department responsible for the Affordable Care Act.
A Democratic TV ad attacking Sen. Mitch McConnell for voting to “raise his own pay four times” simply ignores other votes he has cast to prevent automatic pay increases for members of Congress.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi seized on an old talking point, miscasting a now-famous quote by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in 2010 about the goal of making Obama a “one-term president.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union” on March 10, host Candy Crowley asked the leader of the House Democrats if President Barack Obama’s stated commitment to helping return the House to Democratic power, with Pelosi at the helm, wasn’t the same as McConnell’s comment about his goal of making Obama a one-term president.
An ad from a fiscally conservative group makes a true but misleading claim that the sequester only amounts to “a 3 percent cut in federal spending.” A majority of federal spending is exempt from the sequester cuts, so the parts that are not will be cut much more deeply than that. For example, defense spending (other than for military personnel) will be cut by 8 percent across the board, and nondefense discretionary spending will be cut by between 5 percent and 6 percent.
This Republican talking point aims to blame President Obama for more than $1 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts in domestic and defense spending that — without action by Congress — are scheduled to take effect on March 1. But the reality is that the pending cuts would not be possible had both Democrats and Republicans not supported the legislation that included them. …
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell twisted some fiscal facts in his appearances on the Sunday talk show circuit:
McConnell said the Obama administration has “driven spending as a percentage of our economy from 21 percent up to almost 25 percent.” But it was already projected to be almost 25 percent — actually 24.9 percent — in fiscal year 2009 even before Obama took office.
He also said “99 percent of Americans will not see their taxes go up”
Mitch McConnell incorrectly claimed that oil production is “up 96 percent on state-owned land and private land,” which isn’t close to being true. Production rose 11 percent on those lands in fiscal year 2011, the period to which McConnell alluded. Even over the last five fiscal years, the rise has been 15 percent — not even one-sixth as large as he claimed.
The Senate Republican Leader’s flub occurred on CNN’s “State of the Union” April 1.
The last few weeks have been filled with debate, accusations, stalemate and false claims about the debt ceiling and how — and whether — it should be raised. As the Aug. 2 default deadline looms, here’s a look at the less-than-factual talking points …
Sen. Mitch McConnell wrongly claimed President Obama "rejected the only plan the Democrats have proposed" to raise the debt ceiling. That's not true. The White House has explicitly supported the proposal.
The Senate minority leader made the false statement in a July 26 speech on the Senate floor.
McConnell, July 26: Last night the president rejected not just the only proposal that has passed either house of Congress, he rejected the only plan the Democrats have proposed as well —