New Ad Touts ‘Out of Touch’ Bredesen’s History of Supporting Tax Increases

Senate Leadership Fund on Tuesday launched a new advertising blitz targeting Phil Bredesen’s fixation with raising taxes on Tennessee families.

The $1.1 million buy will run statewide on a combination of broadcast and cable television, radio and digital. The ad is available to watch here.

Bredesen, a former Democratic governor, is running for the seat being vacated by U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who is retiring. His opponent is U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07).

The ad, titled “Out of Touch,” highlights Bredesen’s 30-year record of supporting higher taxes and fees, and his opposition to the recently passed tax reform legislation.

“Phil Bredesen is an out-of-touch multimillionaire who raised taxes and fees on Tennessee taxpayers by over $1 billion,” said Senate Leadership Fund Spokesman Chris Pack. “Bredesen never saw a tax hike that he didn’t like, which explains why he was so resolutely opposed to the Trump tax cuts that are helping Tennessee’s families and jobs.”

Senate Leadership Fund’s website says this about the organization: “As an independent Super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund has one goal: to protect and expand the Republican Senate Majority when Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, together with their army of left-wing activists, try to take it back in 2018.”

The $1 billion figure comes from a December 2010 story in the Times Free Press:

“Departing Gov. Phil Bredesen says his successor can run state government without a sales tax hike, but the record shows that, while Bredesen didn’t raise the sales levy, other taxes and fees soared close to $1 billion on his watch.

Acting at Bredesen’s behest in 2007, for example, lawmakers passed a cigarette tax hike expected to bring in $160 million to $180 million a year, most of it going toward education.

Earlier this year, faced with Bredesen’s threats to slash their TennCare payments, hospitals asked lawmakers to pass a one-year hospital “assessment fee” that would raise $310 million to draw down additional federal matching funds.”

The Tennessee Republican Party this week launched the SophisticatedPhil.com website to share updates on Bredesen, The Tennessee Star reported.

“Phil Bredesen has been desperately trying to convince Tennesseans that he’s one of them, but he keeps getting in his own way,” the organization’s press secretary, Gillum Ferguson, said in a press release.

The website mentions his statements like being more “sophisticated” than rural voters. He made the remarks in an interview with the Times Free Press.

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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.