JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BP, Chevron, WalMart,
and billionaires Charles and David Koch are launching a multi-million
dollar TV-ad buy Tuesday blasting President Obama over the national
debt.
Actually, I don't know who's behind this ad because there's no way to know. And that's a big problem.
The front group for the ad is Crossroads GPS, the sister organization
to the super PAC American Crossroads run by Republican political
operative Karl Rove.
Because Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt nonprofit group, it can spend
unlimited money on politics -- and it doesn't have to reveal where it
gets the dough.
By law, all it has to do is spend most of the money on policy "issues," which is a fig leaf for partisan politics.
Here's what counts as an issue ad, as opposed to a partisan one. The
narrator in the ad Crossroads GPS is launching solemnly intones: "In
2008, Barack Obama said, 'We can't mortgage our children's future on a
mountain of debt.' Now he's adding $4 billion in debt every day,
borrowing from China for his spending. Every second, growing our debt
faster than our economy," he continues. "Tell Obama, stop the spending."
This is a baldface lie, by the way.
Obama isn't adding to the debt every day. The debt is growing because
of obligations entered into long ago, many under George W. Bush --
including two giant tax cuts that went mostly to the very wealthy that
were supposed to be temporary and which are still going, courtesy of
Republican blackmail over raising the debt limit.
In realty, government spending as a portion of GDP keeps dropping.
As I said, I don't know who's financing this big lie but there's good
reason to think it's some combination of Wall Street, big corporations,
and the billionaire Koch brothers.
According to the reliable inside-Washington source "Politico," the
Koch brothers' network alone will be spending $400 million over the next
six months trying to defeat Obama, which is more than Senator John
McCain spent on his entire 2008 campaign.
Big corporations and Wall Street are also secretly funneling big
bucks into front groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that will use
the money to air anti-Obama ads, while keeping secret the identities of
these firms.
Looking at all the anti-Obama super PACs and political fronts
like Crossroads GPS, Politico estimates the anti-Obama forces (including
the Romney campaign) will outspend Obama and pro-Obama groups by 2 to
1.
How can it be that big corporations and billionaires will be spending
unlimited amounts on big lies like this one, without any accountability
because no one will know where the money is coming from?
Blame a majority of the Supreme Court in its grotesque 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission
decision -- as well as the IRS for lax enforcement that lets political
front groups like Crossroads GPS or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pretend
they're not political.