Blunt Using Misleading Taxpayer-Financed Direct Mail to Supplement Senate Campaign

Apart from the fine print that reads, "This mailing was prepared published and mailed at taxpayer expense," it's hard to the tell the difference between the messages in Congressman Roy Blunt's most recent taxpayer-financed mailer and the Roy Blunt for Senate campaign's defensive attacks in recent weeks.

Jim Lee's Busplunge blog has the scoop on the mailer, an obvious response to the League of Conservation Voters' "Stain" ads playing on the teevee in recent weeks.  In the taxpayer-financed version, Blunt pleads with his constituents: "Don't be fooled. I don't work for the interests of big oil or the energy industry." 

Blunt's belief that this is a reasonable official expense would be a lot more believable if it didn't sound just like what we've been hearing from Blunt's campaign over the past few months.  Blunt, his spokesman and the Missouri GOP have repeatedly and consistently tried to connect the ad to Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan.  The MOGROP spokesman, for instance, says the LCV "is attempting to purchase the seat for Carnahan."  So now we're supposed to believe that Blunt's official office is just informing constituents of important nonpartisan matters that they should help pay to learn about?  Please.

It's also worth noting that Blunt's projected cost for the cap-and-trade legislation is false, and he knows it.  His taxpayer-financed mailer reads:

It's a policy that will increase the energy bill for Missouri families by nearly $2,000 per year and will cut thousands of jobs in our state alone.

Actually, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates the bill will cost families $80-$111 a year — or about 22 to 30 cents a day — so long as most program revenue is returned to consumers, and the Congressional Budget Office says the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion — or about $175 per household. 

Even the crazies at the uberconservative Heritage Foundation say the bill would cost families $1,241 per year.  We all know that they're using the most inflated estimates possible to kill the bill – so when Roy Blunt is almost doubling them up... that's saying something.

If Blunt just wanted to inform constituents about the bill, he wouldn't have started with a defensive response about his campaign finance activities and he would have used reputable, reasonable cost estimates.

Here's the full mailer, as posted by Jim Lee's at Busplunge