'Calendar': McCaskill Ad

Tuesday was the last day that Representative Todd Akin could have dropped out of the Missouri Senate Race. However, he did not. In a response, Senator Claire McCaskill released this ad to just remind voters of what Todd Akin has said over critical issues in the past. We are going to investigate these claims to see if in fact the representative did say them! In her ad titled “Calendar” published on September 25th, Senator McCaskill notes many issues that Representative Akin has spoken on in the past year, Social Security, Medicare, Minimum Wage, Student Loans and Abortion. We have already addressed the Representative's stance on Minimum Wage and Student Loans in our previous post, and his legitimate rape gaffe is well known on the internet, so we are going to discuss Representative Akin’s stance on Social Security and Medicare here:

When Todd Akin talked with Central Missouri tea partiers last year in September, he railed against Medicare, liking his struggle against federal health care to that of struggle against a tyrannical government. He stated during that speech that he voted against Medicare expansion because he is against expanding an entitlement program, and lastly said that he finds it nowhere in the Constitution that the government has to provide medical care for its people...but this is all very interesting considering Todd Akin himself has released an ad saying he fights to protect and strengthen Medicare while Senator McCaskill tries to destroy it.


As for Social Security, Representative Todd Akin did in fact say he did not like it. In this interview, Akin calls Social Security “a bad investment for many, many people,” following that statement, Representative Akin calls Social Security “a tax.” Representative Akin states that more money comes in through the program than goes out. He claims that the government spends the money that goes into the system, calling the national government irresponsible when it comes to Social Security.


So in our second post on the Claire McCaskill side of this race, she has told the truth! We know from earlier post that Akin believes student loans are cancer, as well as his opposition to increase the federal minimum wage. In addition to those two, he is also against Medicare and Social Security, as they are entitlement programs, which Rep Todd Akin says he is totally against.

Congratulations to Senator McCaskill for another home run on truth for her advertisements!

Six Seconds-Six Years: Akin Ad

Todd Akin's camp released this video on August 29th talking about how he made a mistake for 6 seconds (in reference to the legitimate rape interview), but having Claire McCaskill in office the past 6 years is much worse. But how true is this ad? We are here to find out!


We start out by discussing how she voted. To be perfectly clear we are leaving the comment about "cutting medicare by over $700 billion" totally out of this blog, as it is a predicted result of ObamaCare and not concrete fact or fiction just yet. The ad says that she was the deciding vote on ObamaCare, and that she voted for the "budget busting stimulus."

On the subject of ObamaCare, she did in fact vote in favor of it. Though calling it the "deciding vote" is slightly misleading, since they needed 50 other votes to even get to the point where she could make a "deciding vote". We at MO Truth, MO Lies count this as a Truth with a Grain of Salt...

With all the stimulus plans that have been passed the last couple of administrations, it is really hard to determine just which one Representative Akin is discussing...but smart money would say that Rep. Akin is talking about this one. And its true, she voted for it.

Now those were the easy ones...


The theme of Senator McCaskill's voting record has started to become common, with CrossRoads actually releasing an ad saying "ObamaClaire". We have found out that in 2011, CQ rated McCaskill as voting in support of the president 92% of the time. That means its a big fat FALSE on Todd Akin for saying 98% of the time. CrossRoads even disagrees with this, saying that she only has voted with him 90% of the time (between 2009 and 2011). Of course, Representative Akin did not cite his source so who knows where he got his information from!

Representative Akin also claims that Senator Claire McCaskill raised taxes, while not paying her own. This claim has plagued Claire McCaskill for years. As a senator, McCaskill has spent approximately $76,000 in public funds to fly on a charter plane belonging to her and her husband and numerous investors. The flights were paid for using McCaskill’s Senate office budget, causing concern on whether she and her husband are using public funds to subsidize their airplane. An aide from Senator McCaskill’s office said that the flights were paid for legally, but the Senator will be sending a check estimated at $88,000 to the U.S. Treasury Department to cover the costs of the 89 flights.

Courtesy of Gateway Pundit

Unfortunately for Senator McCaskill, the plot thickens. In March, it was revealed that she and her husband failed to pay nearly $290,000 in Missouri property taxes for the plane. In a response, McCaskill said she would sell back her plane and pay back the money she owed. Including her check to the U.S. Department of Treasury, it would amount to nearly $375,000 for the cost of the flights and back taxes.

After reviewing the facts about this ad from Representative Todd Akin, we would like to say that this ad is half truthful. Senator Claire McCaskill did vote for ObamaCare and the President's stimulus, but, the claim that she voted with President Obama 98% of the time was an exaggeration. Akin also claims she failed to pay her taxes, which is partially true--but we do not know how true as she has not released all of her tax records.

Is Todd Akin Mainstream? McCaskill Ad

On August 10th, Senator Claire McCaskill released this ad against opponent Representative Todd Akin. The ad addresses three issues on which McCaskill feels Akin's position is against the grain of the common Missourian. Her ad quotes Todd as saying that he wants to privatize social security, abolish minimum wage, and calls student loans the equivalent of stage 3 cancer. But does Todd Akin really believe in these statements?

1) Representative Akin has multiple times come out against the governmental program of Social Security. The ad quoted Todd Akin from a C-SPAN interview in March of last year, here is the full text: "Now, Social Security through the years, for many, many people, has been a terrible investment. It's really a tax, that's all it is. Social Security is a tax. The government has taken the tax. There's been more money coming in than going out. And we spend it. That's not been responsible. I don't like it. I didn't design Social Security. It actually came from Bismarck, FDR put it in place."

 No doubt that Akin wants to privatize social security for youth, and eventually move it away from a government program. But we are going to leave it up to you to decide if that is a good thing or not.

2) In 2007, Congress enacted the FairMinimum Wage Act, an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The act would gradually increase the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour. The federal minimum wage was increased in three increments, with the final increment taking effect in 2009.
The act was passed with 315 votes in the U.S. House of Representatives. One hundred sixteen representatives voted against the measure, including Representative Todd Akin. Akin joined Representatives Sam Graves and Roy Blunt, of the 6^th and 7^th Missouri districts, respectively, in rejecting the act. 

Representative Akin has not explicitly stated that he wants to abolish minimum wage, but he has voted against raising it in multiple measures, indicating his opposition to the federal minimum wage.

MO College Republican Debates in April, Akin is on the left

3) There is no denying that Todd Akin is not a fan of the Department of Education. He has actually advocated its dissolution. During the Missouri College Republican Senate Candidate Debate in April of this year, Akin was quoted (truthfully) as saying "we have the stage 3 of socialism in this country", on the subject of student loans. He has the cure for this cancer too, he said in an interview in Sedalia, MO: Get the Government out of loans, and make it a private issue. He wants banks and financial institutions to be competitive in the market of student loans instead of having the government involved.

So, Claire McCaskill had a great batting average here, getting both social security and student loans 100% right. There is a little wiggle room with how truthful she is about Todd Akin's stance on minimum wage, but we don't see her as being so far off base that we got to smack her down for it. So with the tiniest grain of salt, you can take this ad to be 100% truthful.

Welcome to MO Truth, MO Lies

Welcome! 

Welcome to a brand new fact-checking blog focused on the events of the Missouri 2012 US Senate race!

We are Billy and Lizzie, students at Truman State University studying communication. As a part of our political communication class, we are writing this nonpartisan blog to inform voters so that they can make an educated decision this November in the election.

Our intention is to update twice a week on advertisements that Senator Claire McCaskill and Representative Todd Akin use in their attempt to win the Missouri US Senate seat, and how accurate and truthful these medias during the campaign. Be sure to not only follow this blog, but check out our Facebook page and Twitter account.

An example of what we will be doing throughout the semester:

 In June 2011, conservative group CrossroadsGPS released a series of ads focused on attacking President Obama, 5 U.S. Democratic Senators and 10 representatives about high government spending, and general economic concerns.

After analyzing the ad, there are a couple of things to point out that are misleading towards viewers.

1)  The ads accuse lawmakers for "billions in new taxes." But that ignores the many tax cuts that the Senators supported, including $326.4 billion in net tax savings in the 2009 stimulus legislation and $857.8 billion in last year's tax deal that extended the Bush tax cuts and reduced payroll taxes.

2)  The ads also refer to the economic stimulus as a failure, with the national ad attacking the President says that the Obama promised the "stimulus would create more jobs" but "more people are out of work." According to the Bureau of LaborStatistics, there was more unemployment after the stimulus had been passed, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the rate would be higher yet if not for the stimulus, which did create jobs.

In the end, this ad was a half-truth. It is true that she voted for new taxes, as well as voting for the Obama economic stimulus. But, Sen. McCaskill also supported numerous tax cuts. While it is true that unemployment did not drop after the stimulus, the CBO did report that unemployment would have been much worse without the passing up the stimulus.

Be sure to check our updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays for more fun facts about this year's Senate race!

Lizzie & Billy