https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uaeUNvlk7g

The Corbett-Cawley campaign released a new TV ad today entitled “More and Less,” that uses the same female actress to drive home the same point – that Wolf is a millionaire who favors high middle-class taxes – as the campaign’s recent “Hypocrite Tax” commercial.

The 30-second spot shows clips of Wolf’s face on TV, while a female actress says, “Millionaire Tom Wolf says as Governor he’ll raise the state income tax on many middle-class Pennsylvania families.”

News clips flash across the screen describing Wolf’s claims that “he will raise certain taxes.”

The ad moves to a clip of a clearly stressed young couple hunched over bills, calculators askew, with two children playing in the background. “Wolf thinks these hardworking Pennsylvanians just aren’t paying their fair share,” the woman says.

The commercial then displays pictures of an exuberant Wolf, while the woman continues, “The same Tom Wolf who made over a million dollars some years but paid a tax rate half of what the average Pennsylvanian paid.”

This information, freely released by the Wolf campaign, appears to be true. However, Wolf has been quoted often as claiming that he thinks he should pay more in taxes.

In fact, the sources that the ad uses to justify claims that Wolf would raise taxes on the middle class depends greatly on one’s own opinion of what constitutes the middle-class. The article that they use as a source actually describes Wolf wanting to raise taxes on the rich, and lower them for other Pennsylvanians.

The article from the Harrisburg Patriot News in question quotes Tom Wolf as including individuals with incomes from $70,000 to $90,000 as part of the middle class on whom he would lower taxes – “His plan would shift more of the financial burden onto wealthy taxpayers, reduce taxes for the middle class — a category he says includes households with taxable incomes of roughly $70,000 to $90,000 — and exclude more lower-income households from the tax.”

The Corbett-Cawley campaign, however, seems to assert that those making more than $90,000 a year (the figure Wolf mentioned) includes members of the middle-class. Under that logic, Wolf wants to raise taxes on the middle-class.

The ad closes with a claim that the Wolf campaign adamantly dismisses as false and fact checkers dispute: “[Wolf] moved his company to Delaware to keep from paying his fair share of Pennsylvania taxes.”

In a press release from the Corbett-Cawley campaign, Communications Director Chris Pack further emphasizes the point made in the commercial.

“Millionaire Secretary Tom Wolf is calling for higher taxes on middle class Pennsylvania families and businesses while simultaneously using every trick in the book to avoid paying his fair share of personal and corporate taxes,” he said.

“The more we learn about Secretary Tom Wolf, the more we realize that his actions don’t align with his campaign rhetoric. Secretary Tom Wolf demonstrates time and time again that he is an empty suit who is willing to say or do anything in an attempt to get elected.”

The Wolf campaign responded via press release, claiming that most of the claims in the ad are straightforward lies.

“Tom Wolf has proposed tax relief for middle-class families,” the release claims. “Wolf’s plan includes the first income tax cut in Pennsylvania in 22 years. One analysis of the plan found that approximately 76 percent of Pennsylvanians would see tax relief. Under Governor Corbett, corporations and the wealthy get all the breaks, while hardworking families all across the Commonwealth struggle to get by.”

In addition, the Wolf camp maintains that the Corbett-Cawley campaign’s charges concerning the Delaware tax loophole are false and that Wolf has actually proposed a plan to close the loophole.