New NRSC Attack Ad A Farce

September 29, 2008

GREENSBORO, NC- While the National Republican Senatorial Committee continues to distort state Senator and U.S. Senate Candidate Kay Hagan’s (D-Guilford) record in the North Carolina Senate, Elizabeth Dole’s record in the U.S. Senate generally and concerning our country’s fiscal health specifically is clear.

Under the Bush-Dole team, the United States borrowed at unprecedented rates from foreigners. Since January 2001, the United States has accumulated more foreign-held debt than this country had accumulated in its first 224 years, increasing the amount from $1 trillion to $2.676 trillion. As of July 2008, 22% of our foreign debt, $593.4 billion, was owed to Japan and 19%, $518.7 billion, was owed to China. Oil exporting countries held another $173.9 billion, or 6.5%, and those countries include Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.

As one of the least effective members of the U.S. Senate – ranked 93 out of all of her colleagues – Dole stayed silent at more than 60 Banking Committee hearings, asking no questions and making no comments. These meetings included multiple hearings looking into the mortgage crisis, including when Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox testified and when North Carolina Commissioner of Banks Joseph Smith testified. Twice in three days, Dole was silent at hearings about the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. During last week’s Banking Committee hearing, according to the Raleigh News & Observer, other senators “quick-fired questions at Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke,” but when Dole finally spoke up, she “read a single question off a prepared script. Her query, and the economic advisers’ answers, took up her allotted time of five minutes.” Jennifer Duffy, of the Cook Political Report, said of Dole’s performance, “She’s not perceived as terribly aggressive.”

In 2005, Dole voted against a bipartisan housing reform bill, which would have created a “stronger regulator with new powers” for Fannie and Freddie, choosing to agree the position of “ideologues within the White House” instead. A similar bill had passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly with 331 votes, including 209 Republicans and 122 Democrats. Instead, Dole voted for a partisan, Republican measure which passed on a party-line vote, suggesting that the measure would not have the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster in the full U.S. Senate.
“Elizabeth Dole has voted down the line with President Bush 92% of the time, so it comes as no surprise that she’s carried his water and rubber-stamped his failed economic policies,” said Hagan Campaign Communications Director. “Increasing our debt to record proportions and borrowing from nations who are outwardly hostile to our best interests, Dole simply followed George Bush while he ravaged our country’s financial well being. While North Carolinians were losing their homes and the economy was tanking, Dole was ‘phoning it in,’ declining to use her seat on the committee to help ensure the best interests of her constituents were being looked after. If anyone belongs on Wall Street, it’s Elizabeth Dole and her greedy friends, the same ones who have given her more than $850,000 to help keep her in Washington.”

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