Fact-checking website, PolitiFact ruled that a radio ad aired by Governor Corbett earlier this week is “mostly false.”
The ad discusses Wolf’s past as Pa’s former Revenue Secretary — or, as the ad puts it, “the top tax collector.”
“On Wolf’s watch, taxes were high, killing 100,000 PA jobs and our unemployment went up almost 50%.
“But the real insult? Wolf is a millionaire, but he fought to increase taxes on average Pennsylvanians including higher taxes on home heating and the sales tax.”
Here’s what PolitiFact decided:
Corbett’s ad claimed that “on Wolf’s watch, taxes were high, killing 100,000 PA jobs.”
The ad has a point that Wolf, as a Rendell appointee, did at times give rhetorical support to some of the governor’s proposed tax hikes (as well as some proposed tax reductions). But the ad exaggerates the influence that Wolf, as the operational head of the state’s tax-collection department, had on crafting tax policy. Most of the state’s tax structure was set long before he took office, and most of his job was to carry out tax laws, not craft them.
Meanwhile, the ad suggests that taxes are to blame for the job losses on his watch, when in fact Wolf’s time in office coincided with the start of the national economic downturn — a much more plausible reason for rising unemployment. We rate the claim Mostly False.
5 Responses
Shocking!
Of course it’s mostly false. Corbett can’t run on his record. His campaign will go lower than this come the fall in an attempt to trick Pennsylvania voters. As George W. Bush said – “Fool me once, shame on, shame on me, We don’t get fooled again…”
WHY CAROL AICHELE MUST RESIGN OR WE ARE ALL CORBETT FAMILY!!! So the State Department which is charged among other duties to promote a working democracy in PA failed in its bogus advice to Bob Guzzardi. I know that Carol is a 100% CORBETT political hack but shouldn’t she protect the interests of the 75% of the voting public who want Corbett to go to his retirement home in South Carolina, sooner rather than later? Bob Guzzardi: I know you see the world differently than Carol’s husband Steve Aichele, Corbett’s first FAILURE as Chief of Staff. The Aicheles got you good BOB; Now it is time for Carol to return to private life because her department is not representing the interests of PA: only those who want to continue feeding off the dead political body of Tom Corbett. http://youtu.be/oMVe_HcyP9Y
Couldn’t agree more
This is a huge change for Corbett to go from his near-perfect record of “totally false” to just “mostly false”.
I expect that team Corbett will fire the staffer who allowed something remotely truthful into the ad, as a lesson to others to avoid doing the same. 🙂