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Fact Check: What you need to know about Schilling and Bustos voting record ads

WQAD News 8 reporter Brittany Lewis and the Quad-City Times reporter Ed Tibbetts have partnered to check the facts behind political ads.

Democrat Cheri Bustos and Republican Bobby Schilling will discuss issues facing voters in the district during a moderated debate at WQAD on Thursday, October 9, 2014.  We’ll bring you the debate live on News 8 and on WQAD.com.  You can also follow our coverage of the debate, and issues leading up to the debate, on Twitter with the hashtag #17debate.

by Ed Tibbetts, Quad-City Times

Anti-Schilling ad centers on outsourcing

“Heart” is a 30-second television ad criticizing Republican congressional hopeful Bobby Schilling sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Schilling, who represented Illinois’ 17th District in 2011-12, is seeking to unseat incumbent Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill.

Watch the ad - click here.

When and where it is running: The ad has been running in the Quad-Cities this past week.

The claim: The DCCC blames the jobs lost in Illinois to outsourcing, and it points a finger at Schilling for supporting policies that lead to it. It says that Schilling “voted to reward companies that outsource, letting them keep their tax breaks and their government contracts.” It goes on to say he used “your tax money to help send American jobs overseas.”

What you should know: Outsourcing was a big issue in the 2012 race between Bustos and Schilling, and it’s getting new life this time. The DCCC ad refers to two votes that Schilling cast while in office. One was in 2011, and the other was in 2012.

Both were on what are called “motions to recommit,” legislative vehicles that are often used by both parties to position opposition members to cast embarrassing votes.

The first was a measure that Democrats were seeking to attach to what itself was a non-binding resolution that Republicans sponsored. The underlying measure supported returning spending levels to what they were in 2008, before President Barack Obama took office. The motion to recommit, sponsored by Democrats, would have sent that measure back to committee, with instructions to forbid government contracts from going to companies that outsourced.

The second was a motion to recommit a bill to committee that would have allowed a tax deduction for businesses with fewer than 500 employees.

The instructions attached to this motion would have forbid the tax deduction to be allowed for any company that had fewer domestic employees in 2012 than it did the year before and that had more employees outside the U.S. in 2012 than they did the previous calendar year.

In both of these votes, nearly all Democrats voted for the measures; nearly all Republicans against.


 Anti-Bustos ad hits pension, pay issues

“Spin” is a 30-second ad that is sponsored by Republican Bobby Schilling, who is seeking to win the 17th Congressional District race in Illinois. He’s competing with Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., who ousted Schilling from office in 2012.

Watch the ad - click here.

When and where is it running: This ad has been running in the Quad-Cities, as well as other parts of the district, over the past week.

The Claim: There are two claims in this ad, first, that Bustos backed out of a promise to cut her own pay by 10 percent. Second, the ad says that Bustos voted in late 2013 to cut veterans benefits by $6 billion.

What you should know: The ad combines two attack lines that the Schilling campaign has spent much of its campaign on. The source for the pay cut claim is an interview that Bustos did with the Chicago Tribune editorial board in 2012 in which she said she backed legislation to cut lawmakers' pay by 10 percent.

A questioner asked her if she would cut her own pay, even if the proposal she was advocated didn’t go through. She said that she would.

Bustos has said, however, that the promise was a mistake. She also has said that it wasn’t a pledge she ever made on the campaign trail.

Now, the second claim. This pertains to Bustos’ vote on a budget deal in late 2013.

The agreement on spending targets avoided a government shutdown, and it had broad bipartisan support, including from Republican lawmakers who have campaigned with Schilling.

To pay for some of its provisions, the legislation would have cut pensions for future military retirees by reducing cost-of-living increases by 1 percentage point below inflation. That amounted to $6 billion in savings over 10 years.

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, a Republican, defended the plan in an op-ed in USA Today, saying it affected only those who retired before the age of 62, after which COLAs would be refigured. He said the cuts would mean a person enlisting as an 18-year-old and retiring at 38 would see their lifetime benefit shrink from $1.8 million to $1.7 million.

Still, the cuts caused an uproar among veterans groups, and last February the Congress, Bustos included, voted to restore the previous formula.

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WQAD News 8 reporter Brittany Lewis and the Quad-City Times reporter Ed Tibbetts have partnered to check the facts behind political ads.

Watch for our Political Ad Fact Check reports Sunday nights on News 8 at 10 p.m.

Check out our continuing Political Fact Check coverage, click here.

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