U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, and Pierce County Councilman Dick Muri, R-Steilacoom, are trading barbs over pay in their race for Congress. Here’s a look at them.

The Claims:

Adam Smith criticizes Pierce County Councilman Dick Muri for voting to raise his own pay. “Dick Muri is a politician who wants a promotion,” a Smith ad says. “But his record on the Pierce County Council shows he doesn’t deserve one. In fact, about the only thing Muri has accomplished on the council is to dramatically increase the pay for himself and other county politicians…” The Smith ad says Muri’s pay has gone up to $110,000.

Dick Muri’s campaign responded, that Smith’s salary – thanks to automatic pay raises – has gone up from 34 percent since he was elected “and now tops $176,000.”

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Deficits in Olympia and Washington, D.C. pose monumental challenges to whoever is in charge next year. Politicians have ideas for how to reduce the deficits, but some of them don’t add up. This is the first of a couple claims I’m looking at.

WHAT ROSSI SAYS: When answering questions about what he’d do to bring down the deficit, Republican Senate candidate Dino Rossi names off what he says is about $800 billion in cuts, including $400 billion from ending the bank bailout.

He said it at least twice last week, in an interview and a question-and-answer session with Rotarians at Edmonds Community College, where he told the audience:

Just sitting here looking at what could be done: How about ending the stimulus, that’s there, that’s still sitting in the account, that’s $275 billion that could be applied to deficit reduction. Why should federal employees have a better deal than the people who are footing the bill? How about no raises for a year, and with that, that’s another $30 billion. How about reducing the federal workforce back to pre-Obama levels by only hiring back one for every two that leave? You don’t have to fire anybody. That’s $35 billion. Ending the bailout, TARP: There’s $400 billion. I just gave you about 800. It’s all there.

THE FACTS: In 2008, Congress approved up to $700 billion for TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) to spend, mostly on loans to banks, insurance company AIG and car companies. But it reduced that cap to $475 billion in July 2010 as part of its overhaul of financial regulations. (More here, Page 9.)

The full $475 billion has been committed. At least $388 billion of it has been spent, according to the Treasury Department.

So at most, if the government broke its remaining commitments and kept the money, some $87 billion in spending might be avoided, not $400 billion as Rossi claimed.

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In a press release issued Wednesday afternoon, Patty Murray‘s campaign criticizes challenger Dino Rossi for what the campaign portrays as an attack on public workers, including troops, teachers and firefighters.

“In an offensive and bald attempt to continue to smear his way to victory, 18 year politician Dino Rossi this morning insulted millions of Americans troops and others who serve their country,” the release states. It also includes in the headline what the campaign claims to be a direct quote from Rossi’s appearance on conservative talker Laura Ingraham’s show: “American Troops, Teachers, Firefighters ‘Have Never Held a Meaningful Job In Their Adult Lives.’ ”

But the audio file that was sent along with the press release shows that Ingraham asked Rossi about the business background of the White House staff, specifically advisers to President Obama. Rossi says of those people: “Well, you have a bunch of people that are in charge that have never actually had a private sector job, and a meaningful one, in their adult lives.”

Rossi on Ingraham CLIP 101006

Rossi isn’t talking about all public sector workers. And the reference to “a meaningful one” doesn’t appear to be a claim that only business jobs are meaningful. Instead he appears to be saying that no one among Obama advisers has held a meaningful business job.

Here’s the transcript of the segment of the interview released by Murray’s staff.

Rossi: I come from a world that I think is gonna be unique for a U.S. Senator. I come from a world of no guaranteed salary, no guaranteed benefits.

Ingraham: Good.

Rossi: If you don’t work, you don’t eat. I understand the free enterprise system. I’ve actually signed the front side of a paycheck.

Ingraham: “No, I love that, Dino. And I’ve been saying this consistently. First of all the administration itself in Washington, how many businessmen actually are working within the White House. Can we name one prominent adviser to the president who has actually had to make a payroll? I can’t name one. They brought in this guy Austin GoolsbyAustan Goolsbee, another academic. Larry Summers is on his way out and he was an academic. And they have all these people who have been living off the taxpayers’ dime for years and years as a government employee and meanwhile they’re like, huh, I wonder why people think they’re anti-business? Duh.

Rossi: Well, you have a bunch of people that are in charge that have never actually had a private sector job, and a meaningful one, in their adult lives.

UPDATE: Murray spokeswoman Julie Edwards saw the above post and sent this response:

I think you missed the mark. Rossi was very clearly talking about what kind of experience is “meaningful” and he doesn’t think public sector jobs count.

That whole conversation was about what kind of experience Rossi and the radio host think is important and worthwhile – and he has no value for folks who work in the public sector.

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Dino Rossi‘s campaign insists one of its claims I looked at in my Political Smell Test earlier this week, that Patty Murray has voted to double the national debt, is true. The campaign says I should look at different numbers.

Rossi’s claim was that Murray’s vote for the 2010 budget was a vote to double the debt in five years. To arrive anywhere near that conclusion, one would have to:

• Count the five-year period starting at the end of (fiscal year) 2008, not the period starting at the end of 2009. That’s an odd way of assessing

…

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In a TV ad, Sen. Patty Murray has seized on Dino Rossi’s answer to The News Tribune editorial board about the role of subsidies in awarding the Air Force tanker contract.

WHAT THE AD SAYS: Next to video of Rossi, the screen reads: “Should Boeing workers have a level playing field?”A voiceover says, “When Dino Rossi was asked if Boeing workers should have a level playing field, he said,” — cut to video of Rossi — “No, not as far as I’m concerned.”

THE …

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Republican attacks on Sen. Patty Murray are focusing on the national debt, which has increased on her watch.

WHAT THE ADS SAY: Republican challenger Dino Rossi has an ad on TV that says “Murray voted to double the national debt.”

A new ad from Crossroads GPS, a tax-exempt group that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, says of Murray, “She’s increased our national debt by trillions, and now she wants to raise taxes to help pay for it.”

CLAIM: Eighth District incumbent Republican Dave Reichert, running against Democrat Suzan DelBene in November’s election, has been an outspoken opponent of the so-called Recovery Act, calling it a failure in creating jobs or otherwise stimulating the economy.

Yet Reichert’s opponent charges that he has directly supported a stimulus grant for a Bellevue College technology project as a way to create jobs in his district. What gives?

WHAT DELBENE SAYS: “Once again, Dave Reichert is caught trying to have it both ways,” DelBene’s campaign spokesman Scott Whiteaker said in a press release this week.

“Over and over, he criticized the Recovery Act as a failure, but, in a case of bald-faced hypocrisy, he turned right around and requested Recovery Act funds because he said they would help create or save jobs. It’s clear that Dave Reichert is a politician who will stand on every side of an issue in order to get re elected.”

WHAT REICHERT SAYS: “Dave is already on record expressing his view that the stimulus bill was not the best approach to fix the economy,” Reichert campaign spokesman Darren Littell said in an prepared response. “That has proven out: instead of offering a targeted, immediate jolt to jump-start economic recovery and incentivize the private sector, we’ve seen 16 straight months of unemployment over 9 percent.”

“That said, the stimulus law was passed. And the stimulus has made funds available for people in the 8th district. Now that this bill is law, Dave has fought to ensure his constituents are represented and that the money is spent in the most responsible way possible.

That’s not hypocrisy, that’s not a contradiction — that’s just common sense, and it’s what his constituents expect. Clearly Suzan DelBene would not take the same approach.”
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