LONGVIEW — The Carolyn Long campaign Friday asked media outlets to stop airing a TV advertisement supporting Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, calling the ad “inaccurate and deceptive.”
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee that focuses on electing and supporting Republican representatives, released the ad on Oct. 26.
“Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Battle Ground) cut middle-class taxes, saving Washington families $2,300,” a voiceover in the ad says. “Now 4 million jobs have been created and unemployment is at a 50-year low. Carolyn Long would take us backward. Liberal Long is part of the resistance, joining (House Minority Leader Nancy) Pelosi to oppose your tax cut and supporting government-run healthcare, almost doubling the debt. Long. Pelosi. Higher taxes. Lost jobs.”
About 1.34 million jobs have been added to the market between when the tax cut bill went into effect on Jan. 1 and September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Job creation in August and September are projections.)
This growth is in line with similar periods going back five years and is not related to the tax cut bill, the Long campaign’s counsel said in a press release Friday.
“Congressional Leadership Fund is making a demonstrably false claim, which misrepresents the impact of the Republican tax bill in order to deceive voters about its impact,” Long’s campaign counsel said in a press release Friday.
Herrera Beutler’s campaign Monday declined to comment on the ad because it didn’t pay for it, but a spokesman said, “It’s notable that Carolyn Long is conceding that millions of jobs have been created since Jaime helped pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and yet she still wants to raise taxes on Southwest Washington families.”
The Long campaign also disputes Herrera Beutler’s assertion that middle-class Washington families saved $2,300 this year due to the tax cut bill. Long’s campaign cited the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which finds that the tax legislation would save an average of $1,100 annually for families earning between $49,000 and $79,000 a year. According to the Institute, the tax bill will save the top 1 percent of income earners about $90,000 in 2019.
The average tax savings for all Washington families would be about $2,700, according to the Institute.
Herrera Beutler says a median family of four in the 3rd District saved more than $2,300 from the tax bill, citing the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.
Much of the race for Southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District has centered around the GOP tax cut bill, which Herrera Beutler adamantly supports and Long strongly opposes.
“Carolyn Long can quibble about how many thousands of dollars Jaime saved Southwest Washington families, but what’s even more problematic is that she has stated unequivocally that she’d take all of it away so D.C. can spend it,” a Herrera Beutler spokesman said Monday.
Herrera Beutler often asserts that Long has said she’d like to throw out the entire bill. Long says she wants to repeal much of the tax cut bill because it disproportionately benefits high-income earners, but says she wants to keep the parts that benefit small businesses and the middle class.
