Club for Growth Responds Strongly to Latta’s Complaint
From The Club for Growth:
Club for Growth PAC Responds to Latta’s Hollow Complaint
Washington – In response to a complaint issued by Bob Latta’s congressional campaign against the Club for Growth PAC, Club for Growth President Pat Toomey issued the following statement:
“Bob Latta’s complaint is nothing more than a desperate attempt by a habitual tax-hiker to hide his liberal tax record. Bob Latta voted in support of raising sales taxes in 1998 plain and simple, and no amount of word games or hollow complaints will make his tax-hiking record disappear.”
“Even Latta’s own lawyer and the author of the complaint, Scott Pullins, called the 1998 bill a tax increase in a radio ad Pullins ran in January of 1998 against the proposed legislation: ‘If reform requires more money, we can find it by cutting government spending first, not raising taxes.’”
“Bob Latta is trying to paint himself as a fiscal conservative, but his record tells a different story. In his TV ad, he claims he opposed the Taft tax policies, but he voted in favor of the biggest Taft tax increase in Ohio’s history in 2003. His complaint is just a political gimmick to distract voters from the truth.”
From all media accounts, Birthright Bob’s only real problems with The Club for Growth are: 1) They have the audacity to point out his record of supporting MASSIVE tax increases. and 2) They are based in Washington, D.C. But in terms of picking candidates, I’d take the word of a principled, free market organization like the Club for Growth over any Ohio-based organization (including the Ohio GOP) any day.
The Club for Growth gives the resources to anti-tax, anti-pork candidates who generally don’t have the luxury of having the type of financial support that tax-raising establishment candidates like Bob Latta have at their disposal. And Ohio conservatives should be thankful that The Club is so focused on kicking ass against such a profound Ohio tax raiser.
This complaint is nonsense, but Steve Buehrer’s campaign should be thrilled that Latta is bothering to quibble over which tax increases he supported. Because, as my friend Matt Lewis might say, when you are explaining, you are losing.
Scott Pullins said,
Wrote on October 9, 2007 @ 11:26 am
More lies from the Club for Growth.
The Washington insiders over at Club for Growth are at it again. In response to an election complaint I filed yesterday on behalf of Latta for Congress, they issued a statement falsely attacking me and Rep. Latta. Here’s the relevant part about me:
“Even Latta’s own lawyer and the author of the complaint, Scott Pullins, called the 1998 bill a tax increase in a radio ad Pullins ran in January of 1998 against the proposed legislation: ‘If reform requires more money, we can find it by cutting government spending first, not raising taxes.’”
The problem is, that statement simply is not true. I never said that in a radio ad, Ken Blackwell did. Here’s the script of the ad, which I didn’t write, and here’s the news release put out.
But here is the much more significant item. Amended Substitute House Bill 697 was not even originally introduced until February 2, 1998. Check it out here.
Our radio ads began running on January 19, 1998 and ran for two weeks right up until this bill was introduced. When we began running the ads, Governor Voinovich wanted to just pass a tax increase.
Because of these ads, and the hard work done by me and the over 5,000 members of the organization I ran then, Governor Voinvoich and the members of the Ohio General Assembly decided to let voters have the final say over this process. As a result, this issue appeared on the May 1998 ballot and was defeated by the largest margin of defeat in the history of Ohio statewide elections.
A large portion of the conservative Republicans that voted to place this issue on the ballot, including then State Senator Bob Latta, not only voted against this measure at the polls, but campaigned against it in their districts. And where was Steve Buehrer in this fight? Working for George Voinovich, the main supporter of raising taxes to solve the school funding problem.
Where was David Keating, and the other Washington insiders that now make up Club for Growth? Fighting me every step of the way. Keating, and the organizations he worked for, used this issue to raise funds, but sent us little to fight with on the ground.
Scott Pullins
Publisher,
The Pullins Report
Williams County Republican Central Committee said,
Wrote on October 9, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
The Williams County Republican Central Committee, this evening PROUDLY endorsed Steve Buehrer for U.S. House of Representatives 5th Congressional District
http://wmscogop.org/canditates_page.htm
This is the FIRST TIME in the history of this organization that anyone has ever received an endorsement in a primary race.
Pullins is a Fake said,
Wrote on October 11, 2007 @ 2:12 am
The biggest lie is watching Scott Pullins pass himself off as a taxpayer advocate. Just like with his support of Larry Householder and Jean Schmidt, Pullins is again supporting the biggest tax-hiker in the race. True fiscal conservatives know Buehrer is the much superior choice. But this is a guy who supported Taft-hiker Jean Schmidt in a race against actual tax-cutting conservative, so what do we expect?