Nussle Flexes Financial Muscle, $500,000 Pops Out

Nussle is often mentioned in the context of large sums of money, but this time we’re not talking about the unprecedented national deficit.  The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported today that Nussle has made the first TV ad buy of the 2006 gubernatorial election:

The 30-second ads tout his agenda and his role as chairman of the House Budget Committee. The commercials, scheduled to begin airing this weekend, will try to show Nussle as “a leader in the fight to control spending and clean up the House Ethics scandal.”

Campaign aides said the commercials will run on both cable and broadcast stations statewide. The cost of the ads is $500,000.

Well, that’s an interesting angle for these ads to play.  Maybe Nussle’s staff is making these claims about Nussle’s supposed success in controlling spending (something he has actually failed miserably at) on TV at a time when they know that (1) Democrats are too focused on each other to put many resources towards fighting this and (2) the Democratic candidates just can’t afford this widespread a TV buy this early in the year.  We need to make sure this story doesn’t go away, so here are the facts:

Before Nussle (according to the CBO in 2000): $236 Billion Surplus

After Nussle (according to the CBO in 2004): $412 Billion Deficit

It’s that simple.  Nussle sucked at managing the budget.

1 comment April 21st, 2006