Jane Dittmar for Congress Campaign: “Tom Garrett’s Top Ten Most Ridiculous Lies”

I strongly encourage all VA-05 voters to opt for Democrat Jane Dittmar instead of far-far-right-wing Republican Tom Garrett. You’ll be happy you did!

Tom Garrett’s Top Ten Most Ridiculous Lies

CHARLOTTESVILLE—Before tonight’s debate, Jane Dittmar’s campaign released Tom Garrett’s top ten most ridiculous lies and hypocritical statements.

1.  Tom Garrett claims that Virginia recovered about $1 billion in fraud and theft in Medicaid –

• FACT: This claim is deliberately misleading to the tune of about $997 million. Garrett, who actually worked for the Medical Fraud Control Unit at the Virginia Attorney General’s office, knows exactly how it’s misleading. The $1 billion Garrett claims Virginia recovered from Medicaid recipients committing fraud was actually money the Commonwealth received as a result of a lawsuit against Abbott Laboratories, which was sued for misbranding one of its drugs. Interestingly enough, Garrett accepted a $1,000 contribution last quarter from that same laboratory named in the suit.

2. Tom Garrett proposed a “Student Security” plan that he claims would make Social Security solvent

• FACT:  Garrett’s proposal is to add to the national debt by borrowing money now to pay student loan lenders. In return, students in the program would have to give up years of Social Security eligibility. The plan is simply “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and is ultimately a convoluted attempt to dismantle Social Security. Not only does the plan do nothing to ensure the solvency of Social Security for the next generation of workers, it increases the national debt.

3. Tom Garrett said he has never voted for uranium mining in Virginia –

• FACT: Tom Garrett accepted campaign contributions from Virginia Uranium (vpap.org). The bill HB 1790 was widely regarded as a backdoor vote to allow future uranium mining. This bill which was co-sponsored by Senator Garrett, established the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority (VENCA) and the authority is required to submit an annual report “including its strategic plan, a summary of its activities and recommendations for the support and expansion of the nuclear energy industry in Virginia.” The report included a section discussing Virginia’s largest uranium deposit at Cole Hill.  

4. Tom Garrett said: “As a State Senator, I fought for education and workforce development.”

• FACT: As a State Senator, the Virginia Education Association gave Tom Garrett a rating in the bottom half of the General Assembly. Tom Garrett was the only vote against the 2015 state budget that included funding for education in the Commonwealth.

5. Tom Garrett said: “We advertise in Spanish on radio stations across the border to people about the benefits they might be eligible for.”

• FACT: This long since debunked claim in right-wing and alt-right media outlets refers to a program from the Bush administration involving USDA public service announcements targeting underserved legal resident Hispanic population in this country. The program was never used in Mexico and was discontinued before 2012. How can Garrett protect our borders if he doesn’t even know what’s happening at the border? (Tom Garrett, Frank Batten School 5th District Candidate Forum, September 28, 2016)

6. Tom Garrett claims campaign contributions don’t affect his vote.

• FACT: Just as one example, Tom Garrett voted for a bill allowing companies to hide excess profits from consumers after taking $4,000 in campaign contributions from Dominion Power between 2011 and 2014, and he took another $1,000 from Dominion later in 2015 (www.vpap.org). He has accepted $5,000, the maximum federal contribution, from Dominion’s PAC for his current campaign for Congress (www.fec.gov). Jane has vowed to not take campaign contributions from Dominion Power.

7.  Tom Garrett said our sheriff’s deputies are on food stamps and need to be paid more

• FACT: In 2015 Governor McAuliffe proposed to raise salaries for constitutional officers in the state budget. This proposal would have given a more than 6 percent pay increase to the lowest paid deputies. The sole ‘no’ vote for this budget was State Senator Tom Garrett.

8. Tom Garrett said:  “As a prosecutor, I cut major crimes in half.”

• FACT: Virginia State Police reports show that arrests for “serious crimes” were essentially flat from 2007–2011, decreasing just 2 percent, while total crime in Louisa County actually increased by over 16 percent during the same period.

9.  Tom Garrett said SB 202, was “as an effort to make it slightly harder for criminals to steal public employee’s [sic] identity.” SB 202 is a bill providing that public access to records of the official salaries or rates of pay of public employees whose annual rate of pay is the annual equivalent of twice the federal minimum wage or less is not required under FOIA

• FACT: It’s possible to protect identifying information of public employees without keeping the public in the dark about how tax dollars are being spent.

10. Tom Garrett said “Donald Trump is a smart man”

• FACT: We aren’t sure what metric Senator Garrett is using to measure Donald Trump’s intelligence, but we have to disagree. Donald Trump has mocked people with disabilities, made racist and xenophobic comments, promoted violence against Hillary Clinton supporters, encouraged the use of nuclear weapons, and most recently has bragged about and described sexual assault he has perpetrated. We strongly encourage Senator Garrett to reevaluate his endorsement of Donald Trump for President.

“Tom Garrett continuously repeats in our debates “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts,” said Dittmar campaign manager Tom Vandever. “Well, Tom’s opinions and his ‘facts’ seem to be flat out incorrect or cherry-picked to fit his needs, and we hope the media holds him accountable to his own words during tonight’s debate.”