DNC Rapid Response - Fact Check: Tim Pawlenty at AFP

Please see the below fact check on Tim Pawlenty’s misleading rhetoric about his fiscal record as Governor of Minnesota at the Americans for Prosperity forum in Manchester, NH:

PAWLENTY RHETORIC: “We have a government that was fighting recently about whether $3.65 billion or $3.7 billion. The problem was, they were only taking in $2.20 trillion.”

REALITY: PAWLENTY LEFT MINNESOTA WITH A PROJECTED $6.2 BILLION DEFICIT

When Pawlenty Left Office, Minnesota Faced A $6.2 Billion Deficit For The 2012-2013 Biennium.  [Minnesota Public Radio, 12/2/10]

• “Minnesota's Projected Budget Deficit Shrank By A Fifth To $5 Billion … State Economist Tom Stinson Attributed The Improvement To Federal Action That Helped The Economy, Including A Payroll Tax Cut And Delay In A Capital Gains Tax Hike.” [Associated Press, 2/28/11]

• Minnesota’s Budget “Deficit Is Nearly 13 Percent Of The State's General Fund.” [Associated Press, 2/28/11]

Star Tribune’s Lori Sturdevant: “No Other Governor In Minnesota's 152-Year History” Besides Pawlenty “Has Handed His Successor A $6.2 Billion Deficit Forecast.”  [Lori Sturdevant op-ed, Star Tribune, 12/4/10]

PAWLENTY RHETORIC: “We cut spending and brought it below zero for the first budget cycle in our 150 year history.

REALITY: PAWLENTY’S CLAIM THAT HE CUT SPENDING IN REAL TERMS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 150 YEARS IS “BARELY TRUE”

Politifact: Pawlenty’s Claim That He “Cut Spending In Real Terms For The First Time In 150 Years” Is “Barely True.” [Politifact, 4/12/11]

• Politifact: “The 2010 General Fund Budget Year (Which Starts July 1, 2009), Was Not The First Year Spending Dropped. Spending Also Dropped In 2009, 2004, 1986 And 1983, Although It Was Up For The Two-Year Cycles That Included Those Years.” [Politifact, 4/12/11]

• Politifact: “We Should Note That The 2010-2011 Budget Biennium Was Helped By A Few Factors” Including $2.3 Billion In Stimulus Money And More Than $3 Million In K-12 Funding Shifts. [Politifact, 4/12/11]

PAWLENTY RHETORIC: “We cut taxes over my eight years as Governor.”

REALITY: UNDER PAWLENTY, MINNESOTA SAW MILLIONS IN STATE AND LOCAL TAX INCREASES

“During Pawlenty’s Tenure… State And Local Tax Rates Have Increased For 90 Percent Of Minnesotans, While Tax Rates For The State’s Wealthiest, Those Earning More Than $130,000, Have Decreased.” [MinnPost.com, 2/15/10]

Cato Institute: Despite Pawlenty’s Campaign Pledge Not To Raise Taxes, Pawlenty “Backed A $200 Million Tax Increase On Cigarette Consumers In 2005 And A $109 Million Corporate Tax Increase In 2008.” [Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors, The Cato Institute, 10/20/08]

… ESPECIALLY PROPERTY TAXES

“During Pawlenty’s Tenure, Property Taxes Have Increased By $3 Billion, Or 65 Percent.” [MinnPost.com, 2/15/10]

August 2002, Pawlenty: “You Can’t Run Around The State And Say I’m Not Going To Increase Taxes And Then Cut LGA In A Way That Drives Up Local Property Taxes.” [Associated Press, 9/29/06]

2002: Pawlenty Said, “You Know, You Can’t Run Around The State And Say ‘I’m Not Going To Increase Taxes’ And Then Cut LGA In A Way That Drives Up Local Property Taxes. I Know That.” [Mankato Free Press, 8/8/09]

… AND FEES WENT UP BY OVER $1 BILLION

“During Pawlenty’s Tenure… Fees Have Doubled, Reaching A Total Of $1.25 Billion.” [MinnPost.com, 2/15/10]

WCCO’s Reality Check: “You Are Paying Billions Of Dollars More In Fees On A Long List Of Items, Including Cigarettes, Parking Tickets, Marriage Licenses, Building Permits, Court Cases, College Tuition And Hundreds Of Other Higher Fees On Pawlenty’s Watch.” [WCCO, 5/18/10]

Gov. Tim Pawlent: The Federal Government Vs. Job Creation

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265917/federal-government-vs-job-creation-tim-pawlenty

The Federal Government Vs. Job Creation

 

Tim Pawlenty

April 28, 2011

National Review Online

 

President Obama says he wants to “win the future,” but his labor policies are losing new jobs.

 

Last week, the Obama administration filed a lawsuit to prevent a company, Boeing, from creating new jobs in one state rather than another. This is another outrageous overreach by the federal government. Not only do we now have a law forcing people to buy a good or service (i.e. health care), the federal government is now dictating where companies can and can’t do business!

 

The Obama administration’s National Labor Relations Board filed the lawsuit because Boeing plans to build a new airplane production plant in the right-to-work state of South Carolina. The New York Times called the suit “the strongest signal yet of the new pro-labor orientation of the National Labor Relationship Board under President Obama.”

 

Politics aside, the economics of the NRLB’s suit could not be worse. Boeing is hiring nearly 1,000 new employees in its new South Carolina plant and has invested $2 billion in the project. Instead of prioritizing jobs and growing the American economy for all hard-working Americans, the Obama administration is now dictating where companies are allowed to create new jobs.

 

Understand that I have no grudge against private-sector unions. To the contrary, I grew up in a union family in South St. Paul, once the home of the nation’s largest meatpacking plants. I myself was a union member at a grocery store to help pay for school, and I appreciated the job. Unions historically have played an important role in ensuring safety and fairness in American industry. But today, Big Labor has joined arms with Big Government to actually stop job creation.

 

Private businesses should be allowed build new branches or plants anywhere in America — in fact, we should be encouraging it!

 

Sadly, President Obama is doing the opposite.

 

He is giving Big Labor veto power over where American companies can and cannot build their production facilities, and South Carolina doesn’t make the cut for an investment that would provide new jobs and American products to be shipped around the world.

 

America deserves a president who will support innovation and investment leading to new jobs and economic opportunities everywhere. But today, we have a president beholden to Big Labor, threatening American jobs, and undermining economic growth.

 

Tim Pawlenty is a former governor of Minnesota.

AFP - Watch the Presidential Summit Live Online at 8 PM Tomorrow Night!

This Friday at 8 PM EDT Americans for Prosperity Foundation will host a Presidential Summit on Spending and Job Creation live from Manchester, NH.

Participating in the Summit will be Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum.

We’ll be streaming the summit live online at AmericansforProsperityFoundation.org and C-SPAN will also be showing the event live. This is the first opportunity the presidential candidates will have to detail their plans on reining in government spending, ending budget deficits, and eliminating the national debt. 

As moderator I will be asking each participant questions after their remarks. CLICK HERE if you have thoughts or questions that we should consider asking.

We’ve seen clearly where the current administration stands.  Simply put, when it comes to budget deficits and debt, President Obama’s policies have been bankrupting America. 

President Obama has increased discretionary spending by almost 25% during his first two years and over 55% when you include the failed $814 billion “stimulus” boondoggle passed in 2009. 

His health care takeover legislation, if not overturned by the courts or Congress, will mean trillions more in big government waste and bureaucracy along with higher taxes and health care costs for American families and businesses.    

Meanwhile, on his watch, Medicare has slipped still further down the road toward failure.

Tomorrow night AFP Foundation will host several presidential hopefuls who will take questions for the first time and detail their vision for a more prosperous America. Remember to go to AmericansforProsperityFoundation.org at 8 PM EDT tomorrow to watch this critical event.

Sincerely,

Tim Phillips

P.S. Please use the hashtag #AFPNH to connect with friends, family, and freedom lovers on Twitter during the event.



The Hill - With gas prices rising, Pawlenty jabs at Obama on energy

With gas prices rising, Pawlenty jabs at Obama on energy

By Jordan Fabian, The Hill, April 25, 2011 2:40 PM 

Likely GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty is using rising gas prices to poke holes in President Obama's energy policy.

The former Minnesota governor, like other GOP hopefuls, said Monday that the Obama administration should ramp up domestic oil drilling to reduce prices at the pump, which are approaching $4 per gallon on average nationally. 

"This is a president who has sat on his hands as it relates to drilling," he said on WLS Radio in Chicago. "You know, we've got a country that's got some enormous energy assets that are not being exploited or leveraged to the benefit of our country and to our people."

Meanwhile, the White House has announced it is taking action to help tamp down prices — Obama on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to probe whether speculation in oil markets is contributing to rising prices. 

Press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that high profits by oil-and-gas companies expected to be announced this week will make the case for ending federal subsidies for the industry. 

But Pawlenty accused Obama and Democrats of being "mostly beholden to what I would consider militant or unreasonable environmentalists," expressing doubt they would expand drilling. 

"This is a country that needs to get much more serious about Americanizing our energy sources and doing everything we can to develop our own energy here and add more supply, and that would help," he said

Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/157609-pawlenty-jabs-at-obama-on-energy-



Tim Pawlenty picks a pollster

By Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake, Washington Post, April 14, 2011 7:31 AM ET

Tim Pawlenty has signed Jon Lerner as the pollster for his soon-to-be-announced presidential campaign, the latest in a string of high-profile hires for the former Minnesota governor.

“I took a lot of time to look at the candidates and the records of the candidates in the field,” said Lerner in an interview with The Fix. “The more I looked at it, the more I was impressed with what Tim Pawlenty was able to do in Minnesota.”

Lerner is one of the lowest-profile consultants in Washington but has a long list of wins under his belt. In the 2010 cycle, he helped elect Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), as well as Govs. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) and Sean Parnell (R-Alaska). Lerner has also long been involved with the Club for Growth’s political activities.

Like Pawlenty, Lerner spent his formative years in Minnesota, but the two men’s paths never crossed before last year. (Pawlenty served as the vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association, and Lerner was one of the organization’s lead consultants.)

Lerner explained that he was drawn to Pawlenty because of his belief that the governor can effectively articulate the economic message so central to most GOP primary voters.

“The candidate who becomes the nominee of our party is the one who can most credibly speak to the cluster of voters that are heavily motivated by economic and size-of-government concerns, and Tim Pawlenty’s record and positions on those issues are very compelling,” said Lerner.

Lerner joins a rapidly-expanding senior political team for Pawlenty that includes Nick Ayers, the campaign manager, and Jon Seaton, the political director — moves that should put to rest any lingering doubts about whether the former governor is running for president.

The hirings, while largely ignored by most voters, will almost certainly build on the positive buzz for Pawlenty in the political chattering class. Success in the staff chase shows seriousness and, Pawlenty hopes, will help drive donors to invest in his campaign.

The next few months — the second fundraising quarter ends on June 30 — will be critical for Pawlenty to translate that positive buzz into actual dollars.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/tim-pawlenty-picks-a-pollster/2011/04/13/AFfORYbD_blog.html