Mailout Edition 1 - Debicella will blame Himes for pretty much anything

You might have seen the Debicella mailout below and, chances are, you didn't really pay much attention. Neither did the Debicella campaign.

There are so many errors, falsities, deceptions and mistakes that it needs several posts to deal with. If there are so many wrong points on one side of one document, what else is there in the wider campaign?

Click here to see the full-size version.

Lets start with federal spending and the deficit:

ERROR ONE

To say Himes "voted for a 22% increase in spending" is simply not true. Two-thirds of federal spending in the financial year of 2009 was on programs like Medicare and Social Security - these are funded automatically so NO ONE votes for them every year.

ERROR TWO

The figure also includes appropriations spending for the Defense, Homeland Security, and Military Construction Appropriations bills from the financial year 2009. These were voted for - by Himes' Republican predecessor Chris Shays in September 2008.

ERROR THREE
Debicella also forgets that his nice figure includes the one-time emergency spending under the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP). This was supported by Shays and signed into law by Bush.



What else does Debicella wrongly blame on Himes??