Latest Democratic TV Ads Ignore Some Key Facts

By Brooks Jackson/CNN

WASHINGTON (April 4) -- Last month, after his "Junior Tuesday" primary victories, Sen. Robert Dole signaled that he intends to highlight the Congress' budget battles with President Bill Clinton during the fall campaign. Dole told supporters: "We sent him the first balanced budget in a generation. He vetoed it."

Now, the Democratic National Committee has taken part of Dole's speech and used it in a pro-Clinton ad running in 19 states whose electoral votes the Clinton forces see as key to victory.

The target states include California, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Floria, Kentucky and Tennessee.

It's a counter-attack to Dole's veto attack. Says the ad: "The president proposes a balanced budget protecting Medicare, education, the environment. But Dole is voting no."

The ad goes on to claim the president cut taxes for 40 million Americans, and says Dole voted against that.

Dole voting "no" to a balanced budget and tax cuts? Let's see that again. It's true that Clinton's latest proposed budget would balance in seven years -- on paper. But experts are skeptical.

"It balances on paper with a wish and a prayer and a little bit of the fiscal equivalent of hamburger helper," said Robert Reischauer of the Brookings Institution.

And Carol Cox Wait of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, put it this way: "You can't take it seriously. It isn't a serious proposal to balance the budget."

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Clinton's budget calls for making 85 percent of the spending cuts after the year 2000.

"I think the Republican budget is marginally more credible for deficit reduction than the president's is," Reischauer said. Would either proposal really balance the budget? "Probably not," he said.

The DNC ad also claims the president is protecting Medicare. What about that? Republicans currently propose to cut the growth of Medicare by $168 billion over seven years. Clinton's budget calls for $124 billion in cuts, which Clinton calls "savings."

And the claim of tax cuts for 40 million people? That's correct, but not the whole story. Clinton's 1993 budget did expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for 15 million low-wage families -- 40 million people if you count their children.

But it also raised taxes for 1.5 million of the nation's highest-income families, nearly 5 million of the highest-earning Social Security recipients and raised gasoline taxes 4.3 cents per gallon for all motorists -- 263 million people, if you count their kids.

A second Democratic ad, running in Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, is even tougher on Dole. A somber narrator says: "Republicans will stop at nothing to stop President Clinton," citing alleged Republican cuts in school lunch programs, Head Start and children's health care. 1.8M QuickTime movie

That's false advertising. The Republican Congress appropriated more money for school lunches this year, just what Clinton asked, in fact. And the Agriculture Department says it has increased the number of children served, from 25.7 million to 25.9 million. Spending is up from $4.1 billion to $4.4 billion.

Money for Head Start has been cut four percent this year -- temporarily. But Republican leaders have agreed to a one percent increase once a permanent appropriations bill is passed. Meanwhile, not a single child has been affected and Head Start enrollment is up this year, from 740,000 in 1995 to 752,000 in 1996.

The ad's mention of children's health care refers to Medicaid, which provides health coverage for one American child in every four. Republicans did pass a $164 billion cut in Medicaid growth, which Clinton vetoed. Now the differences have narrowed, though. Republicans last proposed to cut only $85 billion over seven years, while Clinton's own budget proposes cuts of $59 billion.

The Democrats' ad strategy is to tie Sen. Dole to the unpopular House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as though they were running mates. And they're not letting the facts get in the way of pro-Clinton political spin.

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