Congressman Istook's campaign
responded yesterday in a press release (below) to Republican governor candidate Bob Sullivan's new television ad criticizing Istook's Congressional votes and fiscal conservatism. Congressman Istook called Sullivan ads "deliberately misleading" and "doubly dishonest."
"Bob Sullivan has gone beyond breaking his written pledge to a clean campaign. That was the first dishonesty. Second, and what’s worse is that he's telling falsehoods. That makes him doubly dishonest."
His statements and his TV ads deliberately mislead people about votes in Congress. He distorts a vote on funding veterans’ benefits, by claiming it was a pork barrel vote. That's dishonest. He even claims that a vote on funding the military was actually a pork-barrel vote. Again, that's dishonest. He is willing to say or do anything, however false, just to try to win an election."
Anyone who checks the Congressional Record will see that the votes he criticizes were final votes on major bills to take care of our veterans, our national defense and so forth. These were not separate votes on any pork-barrel project. I don’t like it when bits of pork are slipped into those bills, but that didn't justify voting against our veterans or our military. Like Senators Inhofe and Nickles, and all of Oklahoma's Congressmen, I voted for bills that were imperfect but were still important. None of the Oklahoma delegation voted any different than I did on these bills."
“I wasn’t going to cut off benefits to disabled veterans, their widows or their children, nor close the VA hospitals and VA centers. Would Mr. Sullivan have voted against these bills? Then he would have voted against veterans. He’s taking cheap shots at a $25-billion package for our veterans just because there was a $1-million problem. When it comes to up-or-down votes like these, you cannot change it, and you can’t vote for some parts of the bill and against other parts.”
My record on spending is solidly conservative, including awards every year from responsible groups like the National Taxpayer's Union and Citizens Against Government Waste. I'm the principal author of the Balanced Budget Amendment, which is the solution we need to these spending problems. I'm committed to fiscal responsibility, and I'll continue that commitment as Governor."
Cick
here for Internet links to the votes singled out by Sullivan and links to the full text of the bills featured in Sullivan’s ads and press releases.
Posted at 6/28/2006 08:59:00 AM
