Really. And the local GOP wonders why we think of them as the Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight. Memo to Jeff and Sher: You are running for statewide office in Delaware — Pennsylvanians won’t save you from the craziness that is the Delaware GOP.
Yesterday, Jeff Craig Cragg and Sher Valenzuela spent the day in Philadelphia, meeting the RNC Chair Reince Priebus, where it looks like the RNC Chair needed some local R props to help sell the latest round of RNC bullshit. Or Jeff and Sher were leveling up (geek alert!) their Charlatan characters. Who knows. So instead of being here actually working for votes IN DELAWARE, Jeff and Sher were on hand to signup for more of the usual bamboozelement:
Priebus, visiting Philadelphia today, repeatedly said Obama’s administration had given more than $500 million to build cars in another country. And he repeatedly tried to link the money to Obama’s federal stimulus program, not the program started under Bush. Both claims are inaccurate.
Inaccurate. So the RNC Chair came to Philly to lie to people and needed the Delaware GOP candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor to help him do that. The Washington Post already gave this 4 Pinnochios. And while the Post’s Fact Checker often has an eccentric view of facts (still working on the he say she say model), Bloomberg provides a contemporaneous account of the money and Fisker’s work to date. So while Fisker got less than $200M of their loan (the part meant to design the mid-level car), the RNC Chair is trying to bamboozle people into thinking that Fisker got more than $500M to build cars overseas. Not true. So while Delaware has an idle car factory, and an European car maker is looking to build cars in the US, Jeff and Sher are spending their energy helping the GOP to sell a lie about the program. You’d think that people who want to lead this state’s government would want cheerlead for more manufacturing jobs here, but it looks like they’e got their GOP marching orders down pat: if there is a choice between your political advantage and and long term economic improvements — always choose your personal political advantage. And definitely go to Pennsylvania to do it.
More from Priebus:
And, though he repeatedly complained that the Fisker auto production in America never happened, Priebus said the money dedicated to fund that manufacturing should not be given to the company.
Really? This is from the guy whose party voted down the Bring Jobs Home Act — an effort to stop subsidizing the outsourcing of jobs overseas. it wouldn’t stop the outsourcing, a company could do that if it made financial sense, but it would stop making American taxpayers pay for that. And Americans do pay to move jobs overseas — to the tune of almost 120% of the actual moving cost. Why should middle class taxpayers fund their own destruction? (And remember this outsourcing subsidy next time someone wants to sneer at “they didn’t build that”). Because the GOP’s objection here isn’t that a company got taxpayer funds — it is that they just don’t approve of this company because President Obama does.
And don’t forget that Jeff and Sher don’t care enough about Delaware’s future to be here to fight for it — they’re going to be in Pennsylvania sucking up to the worst of the GOP bamboozlers.
h/t Anonymous tipster