The campaigns for Congress in the 6th District are flooding the airwaves with claims, many of them dubious, about Medicare, the federal budget and coal issues. Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler and Republican challenger Andy Barr locked horns in 2010, with Chandler coming out ahead by a scant 647 votes. The rematch figures to be just as hotly contested. Through June, Barr reported raising more than $1 million, while Chandler, who is seeking his fifth full term in Congress, exceeded $1.5 million. Most will be spent on television commercials.Barr has also received support from the Republican establishment. He was named a National Republican Congressional Committee "Young Gun," received a speaking role at the party’s national convention, and the NRCC is running radio and TV ads in support of his campaign.
Medicare
The NRCC responded to the Chandler ad, claiming, “The budget Chandler voted for spent $1.2 trillion more than it took in. Chandler voted to increase the national debt limit by $6 trillion.”
Chandler voted for a budget with a deficit of $1.2 trillion for fiscal 2012, but joined 174 Republicans and 94 other Democrats to pass the debt deal on Aug. 1, 2011, which if implemented would cut the federal debt by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years.
That same bill was part of a compromise that raised the debt ceiling. Raising the ceiling, which has been done dozens of times, authorizes the government to pay for items already authorized by Congress. Increasing the limit does not cause additional debt.
Coal, Cap-and-Trade
An NRCC radio ad claims, "Experts say Obama's cap-and-trade plan could eliminate 35,000 Kentucky jobs." A TV ad from the NRCC says, "Chandler even supports Obama's far-left cap-and-trade energy policy that threatens Kentucky jobs in mining and manufacturing."
The American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers claimed that jobs in Kentucky would decline between 25,710 and 35,010 by the year 2030, because of "lower industrial output due to higher energy prices" caused by the cap-and-trade bill to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. The groups opposed the bill.
A coalition favoring the bill, Clean Energy Works, estimated that the bill would create 1.7 million new jobs. It did not provide state estimates.
CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified that total employment would show some slight declines as the labor markets adjusted to the legislation, which passed the House but not the Senate.
For more details and analysis on some of these claims, see the nonpartisan websites FactCheck.org, Politifact.com and WashingtonPost.com/blogs/fact-checker.
