Cowardly

CORE MESSAGE

Taking from seniors and working families to avoid asking your wealthy campaign donors to pay their fair share? That's cowardly.

Connect: We need a national budget that reflects our values and leaders with the backbone to stand up for them.

Define: Washington Republicans talk about making tough decisions, but their budget is only tough on Americans who are struggling.

Expose: They talk about courage, but taking away medicine from children and seniors to avoid asking your wealthy campaign donors to pay their fair share is cowardly.

Discredit: These politicians aren't serious about deficits.Despite the tough talk, their budget would actually increase the deficit.

Offer solutions: If they were really serious about deficits, they'd stand up to their wealthy campaign donors and get rid of the wasteful tax giveaways that caused our debt.

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ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

CLAIM: "The GOP budget tackles our generation's defining challenges and doesn't hide from tough decisions."
RESPONSE:

• They talk tough on deficits, but the latest GOP budget would actually make the debt worse. They talk about making tough decisions, but their budget is only tough on struggling Americans.
• This comes down to our national priorities. Do we really want an America where more gets taken from seniors and working families just so the richest few bankrolling politicians can pay less?
• Actually, the GOP plan would mean that by 2050, our federal government won't exist aside from Social Security, health care, and defense -- that's not the kind of country Americans want to leave our kids and grandkids.

CLAIM: "The House GOP budget heroically and gutsily takes on entitlement spending."
RESPONSE:

• They say we can't afford to keep the Social Security and Medicare benefits that working Americans invest in their entire working lives, but that we can afford tax giveaways to oil companies, millionaires, and corporations that already have more money than they can spend.
• There's nothing brave or honorable about taking away medicine from seniors or food from hungry children just so you don't have to ask your wealthy campaign donors to pay their fair share.
• Courage is standing up to the wealthy and powerful special interests funding their campaigns -- but Washington Republicans won't do it. They actually want more giveaways for the 1%.

CLAIM: "The GOP budget spurs economic growth with bold tax reform."
RESPONSE:

• We tried trickle-down economics and it doesn't work. We can't go back down that road again.
• But when President Clinton told millionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share, we got millions of new jobs and strong economic growth.
• The best way to get our economy going is to put Americans back to work and put money in the pockets of the real job creators: regular Americans whose spending keeps our businesses thriving and hiring.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• The latest GOP budget would actually make the debt worse and keep taxpayer giveaways for oil companies, big corporations, and the wealthiest few.
• At the same time, the GOP budget would end Medicare as we know it and take away health insurance from tens of millions of Americans, cut deeply into the programs that struggling Americans rely on, and end most of our federal government -- like scientific research, education, law enforcement, and infrastructure funding -- by 2050.
• Like the latest budget plan from Republicans in Congress, Mitt Romney's $11 trillion tax plan would overwhelmingly go to a tiny number of the wealthiest few -- including himself -- while cutting the Social Security and Medicare that Americans invest in all their working lives.
• Three-fourths of Americans, including nearly 70% of Republicans, support the Buffett Rule. And America does better when the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.
• 70% of Americans, including the majority of Republicans, want to keep Medicare as it is today, instead of replacing it with coupons as the House GOP and Mitt Romney have proposed.
• Republican politicians -- who got 88% of the oil and gas industry's campaign donations last year -- have repeatedly voted to protect wasteful taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil and want even more.
• At the end of the Clinton Administration, we were expecting a $6 trillion budget surplus -- but Bush Republicans who thought "deficits don't matter" squandered the surplus and doubled the national debt by 2009. That's what President Obama inherited.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.