AD WATCH
Musgrave and veterans
Title: What Do We Really Know About Marilyn Musgrave?
Sponsor: Coloradans for Life
Type: TV ad
The message: After asking the question above, the ad gives viewers three answers:
Musgrave voted against a bonus for soldiers, voted against funding to protect troops from roadside bombs and voted to cut veterans’ benefits.
“But Marilyn Musgrave did vote to give herself a pay raise,” the ad says. It closes: “Marilyn Musgrave has failed us. The more we know about Marilyn Musgrave, the worse it gets.”
Fact: Veterans for Progress, a nonprofit group, has called for the ad to be pulled, saying it is “misleading.” In 2005, the Disabled American Veterans gave Musgrave a zero rating, the worst possible score.
In 2003, Musgrave voted in favor of a 4.1 percent pay increase for all military personnel. In 2005, Musgrave voted in favor of $240 million in funding to increase armor on military vehicles. In 2006, she was one of only 19 members of her party in Congress who voted against providing $2 billion to develop improved-explosive-device countermeasures.
Congressional pay raises are automatically included as part of pay increases that all federal civilian and military employees receive. Congress has collectively accepted cost-of-living raises in recent years after rejecting them for several years in the 1990s.
– Kieran Nicholson
