But Romney’s “man in Congress,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), seems to misunderstand the issue. In an interview on MSNBC this afternoon, Blunt blamed high student loan rates on the Affordable Care Act:

BLUNT: Why is that rate as high as it is? Because it was one of the pay-fors in the president’s health care plan. If the health care plan goes away, as the court very well might decide, there is no longer an argument about this loan rate, because it was used to take money from students, and pay for health care. … The wrapping up of that student loan thing into the Obama health care deal is the real problem here.

Watch it:

In fact, the rate was set back in 2007, when President Bush signed a Democratic-backed law to lower the rate from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. That law expires on July 1 of this year, and the lower rates end along with it. The Affordable Care Act and President Obama are entirely irrelevant.

Blunt is likely thinking of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA), a bill that was attached to the Affordable Care Act. And while it did not affect loan rates, it did remove banker middlemen from the student loan process, which will save taxpayers millions of dollars.

Former Gov. Linda Lingle (R-HI)

In a statement, Lingle’s campaign manager said she shares the position of her Democratic opponent, opposing the amendment sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO). “Governor Lingle and [Democrat] Mazie Hirono share the same position on the Blunt amendment,” the statement said. “[N]either supports the broadly crafted language of the amendment.”

Nonetheless, Lingle, who is pro-choice, attended a fundraiser for her campaign which featured Blunt last night in DC. Lingle’s campaign defended the decision to travel nearly 5,000 miles to attend the fundraiser, decrying alleged Democratic “personal attack[s]” on Blunt.

Lingle joins Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who voted against the Blunt amendment, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who said yesterday that she regrets her vote for the measure, in publicly criticizing the Blunt legislation. It was narrowly defeated on a near party-line vote last week.

“I have never had a vote I’ve taken where I have felt that I let down more people that believed in me,” Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News’ Julia O’Malley, claiming that the amendment’s language went “overboard”:

“If you had it to do over again, having had the weekend that you had with women being upset about the vote, do you think you would have voted the same?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

Murkowski said she believes contraception should be covered and affordable, except when it comes to churches and religiously affiliated organizations, like some universities and hospitals. She sponsored a contraception coverage bill as a state legislator in 2002. That bill exempted “religious employers.” She said her position hasn’t changed.

“I have always said if you don’t like abortion the best way to deal with it is to not have unwanted pregnancies in the first place,” she said. “How do you do that? It’s through contraception.”

I pointed out that her support for birth control conflicts with the Catholic mandate against it. “You know, I don’t adhere to all of the tenets of my faith. I’m a Republican, I don’t adhere to all of the principles that come out of my party,” she said. “I’m also not hesitant to question when I think that my church, my religion, is not current.”

Murkowski called the Blunt Amendment a “messaging amendment” that “both sides know is not going to pass” and said “Republicans didn’t have enough sense to get off of it.” She also condemned Rush Limbaugh’s deragatory comments about a Georgetown law student testifying in favor of greater access to birth control. “I think women when they hear…mouthpieces like that say things like that they get concerned and they look to policymakers,” she said. “That’s where I feel like I have let these women down is that I have not helped to give these women the assurance they need that their health care rights are protected.”

Before the vote, ThinkProgress repeatedly called Murkowski’s office to ask how she would vote on the Blunt measure, but her office did not return our requests for comment. Retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was the only Republican to oppose the measure.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)

Today, the battle over coverage for the full range of medically necessary health services reached another milestone. The Blunt Amendment, which the Senate narrowly voted to table earlier today, would have given unprecedented discretion to any employer or insurance plan, whether or not religious, to exclude coverage for critical health care services on the basis of undefined “moral convictions.” This far-reaching proposal was not limited to particular services, instead restricting access to care in a manner so extreme that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described the measure as “dangerous and wrong.” The Amendment was the latest in the GOP’s continuing effort to limit access and autonomy in health care, a firestorm that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has vowed to reignite.

The Blunt Amendment undermined the Affordable Care Act’s guarantee of coverage for essential health benefits, and could have placed access to preventive care services at risk for over 20 million women. Perhaps its greatest threat, though, was its potential to gut the crucial equity framework established by the Affordable Care Act, placing entire populations at risk of losing coverage for necessary, sometimes life-saving, care.

Among those with the greatest to lose from proposals like the Blunt Amendment is the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Broad and unfettered language of the kind advanced by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) would grant insurers and employers the right to deny coverage for nearly any service provided to LGBT patients. For example, under the Blunt Amendment:

– An insurer could refuse to cover any health care service to a gay couple because of a religious or moral objection to such relationships.

– An employer could refuse to cover life-saving care for HIV or AIDS, due to an unfounded “moral objection.”

– An insurance plan could ban coverage for nearly any care provided to a transgender person, on the basis of moral or religious objection to their gender identity.

Denying coverage for these basic essential services – a central requirement of the Affordable Care Act – rolls back progress in public health, and places the lives of LGBT people at risk.

If this type of discriminatory measure seems familiar, it is because courts have struck down similar policies before. In 2008, the California Supreme Court held that anti-discrimination protections similar to the kind contained in the ACA cannot be broken by providers because of religious objections to serving patients. President Obama in 2011 repealed provider conscience clauses for insurers, nearly identical to the type contained in the Blunt Amendment, because of the very real fact that these types of exemptions put the health and safety of patients at risk. As if that is not enough, courts have held that religious exceptions to insurance coverage must be tightly contained, and that even expressly religious organizations “must be prepared to accept neutral regulations imposed to protect [employees’] legitimate interests in doing what their own beliefs permit.”

Even some of the Amendment’s supporters previously objected to tampering with the relationship between patients and their providers. That commitment, however, wavered as Blunt and other Senate conservatives used today’s vote as a divisive election-year strategy to advance their broader political agenda.

The Affordable Care Act has moved America’s health care system toward equal access and accountability for the health of all. The Blunt Amendment, and measures like it, take away patients’ decision-making powers and place them in the hands of employers and insurance companies. Continued improvements in access to high quality care for all depends on this steadfast commitment to equality and the public good, and not partisan games.

During the nearly two hour debate, Republicans attempted to frame the issue as an attempt to prevent religious organizations from the Obama administration’s overreach and, despite supporting efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, maintained that women could obtain birth control from public sources. Blunt took to the floor to argue that employers would be discouraged from denying certain treatments by existing state mandates and a provision in the amendment requiring employers to replace the benefit with another service.

The most surprising support came from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a pro-choice Republican who has previously supported contraception equity measures without conscience exemptions for religious organizations. Collins expressed skepticism about the wide scope of Blunt’s amendment, but said the administration’ incomplete rule — specifically its lack of detail about how to treat self-insured plans — compelled her to support the measure. “I feel that I have to vote for Sen. Blunt’s amendment with the hope that the scope will be narrowed and refined,” she said, adding, “I do this with a lot of conflict.”

The Obama administration’s rule requires employers to offer contraception in their health care benefit plans, but exempts houses of worship and nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith from covering birth control. Religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges, and other nonprofits can also eschew the benefit. Their employees would obtain the coverage — at no additional cost sharing — directly from the insurer.

On contraception coverage, 63 percent of people agree with President Obama’s position that employer-provided insurance plans should cover it at no cost. Most people also agreed with the Democrats’ agrument that the contraception debate is about women’s rights, and 49 percent said they most trusted Democrats on the issue, with 33 percent saying they trusted Republicans.

The Senate will vote on the Blunt amendment, which would undermine the contraception mandate by allowing any employer to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of their personal moral objections.

But moments later, the Romney campaign reversed itself, claiming that the candidate was confused by the question and that he does indeed support the rhetoric behind the bill, namely a boss’ right to keep health care services out of the reach of workers based on religious concerns. Romney himself clarified his stance during a radio interview on the Howie Carr Show:

ROMNEY: I didn’t understand his question. Of course I support the Blunt amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception. So I simply misunderstood the question and of course I support the Blunt amendment…No, I simply misunderstood what he was talking about. I thought it was some Ohio legislation, where employers were prevented from providing contraceptives, and so I talked about contraceptives and so I really misunderstood the question. Of course Roy Blunt who is my liaison to the Senate is someone I support and of course I support that amendment. I clearly want to have religious exemption from Obamacare…. I really think all Americans should be allowed to get around this religious exemption.

Watch the two moments side by side:

Note that Romney could not bring himself to back the actual intent of the Blunt amendment — empowering employers to deny any health care services that undermine their religious beliefs — but could only justify his support by embracing the GOP’s rhetorical cover story: the claim that Obama’s contraception rule undermines religious liberties and that Blunt seeks to protect them. When Jim Heath unwrapped the faux First Amendment claim and explained the bill for what it actually does (rather than what the GOP claims it would prevent), Romney opposed it. As he explained in the radio interview, he initially came out against the bill because “I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception.”

But that’s precisely what Blunt would do. Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Individuals too can opt out of coverage if it is contrary to their religious or moral beliefs, radically undermining “the basic principle of insurance, which involves pooling the risks for all possible medical needs of all enrollees.” As the National Women’s Law Center explains, Blunt’s language is vague enough that “insurers may be able to sell plans that do not cover services required by the new health care law to an entire market because one individual objects, so all consumers in a market lose their right to coverage of the full range of critical health services.” As a result, a man “purchasing an insurance plan offered to women and men could object to maternity coverage, so the plan would not have to cover it, even though such coverage is required as part of the essential health benefits.”

Romney opposed such broad conscience exemptions as governor of Massachusetts and even mandated his health department to issue regulations that required all hospitals — including Catholic institutions — to offer the morning after pill to rape victims. As he told the Boston Herald at the time, “My personal view in my heart of hearts is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraceptives or emergency contraceptive information.”

Republican lawmakers have rallied around Blunt’s amendment. A vote is scheduled for tomorrow, attached to an unrelated transportation bill. But Snowe — who announced her retirement yesterday — said on MSNBC today that the Blunt Amendment goes too far:

SNOWE: With respect to the Blunt amendment, I think it’s much broader than I could support. I think we should focus on the issue of contraceptives and whether or not it should be included in a health insurance plan and what requirements there should be.

Watch it:

Fellow Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins joined Snowe in breaking ranks with the GOP to support Obama’s contraception rule, after he made an accommodation to religious organizations. So far, Collins is undecided on the Blunt amendment and others may oppose it too.

Sixty-seven percent of voters oppose legislation like Blunt’s, a recent poll found.

The Blunt amendment will come to a vote in the Senate on Thursday.

Upon hearing news of President Obama’s regulation requiring all employers to offer contraception coverage without additional cost sharing, Bozell examined his own organization’s insurance policy and was “horrified” to learn that MRC’s plan has long provided contraception (and abortion) coverage. Bozell asked his employees to stop using “contraception/abortifacient/abortion services” and promised to eliminate the benefits at once:

“[W]e are working to change our insurance policy so as not to have to comply with this administration’s disgusting mandate to provide contraceptive, sterilization and abortifacient services. In the course of looking into this I have learned our insurance policy provides abortion services. I cannot begin to tell you how horrified I am by that. I never would have approved this had I known. It is the taking of a human life. That will change.”

If Congress approves Blunt’s amendment, employers like Bozell would be able to make health decisions for their employees on the basis of their own personal beliefs. About two-thirds of Americans oppose this idea, but Bozell is already putting it into practice.

The incident is reminiscent of the Republican National Committee’s reaction upon discovering — through an article in Politico — that its health insurance plan covered abortion in 2009. Like Bozell, the RNC did not change its policy until it contradicted its political rhetoric, suggesting that women’s health care benefits are standard insurance benefits and that the GOP’s sudden outrage is nothing more than a manufactured political issue designed to rally the Republican base.

Today, the Senate will hold a vote on a Republican substitute introduced by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), which would allow any and all insurers and employers to deny their employees health benefits and services required by federal law based on their personal religious or moral objections. The measure has 37 co-sponsors — including the GOP leadership, women Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski (AK), Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Democrat Ben Nelson (NE), and Republican Scott Brown (MA). Brown has supported expansive conscience protections for religious organizations throughout his legislative career, but voted for a tougher contraception mandate as a Massachusetts state representative in 2002 and approved of a law requiring all hospitals — including Catholic institutions — to provide emergency contraception to rape victims in 2005.

After defending Obama’s rule last year, Democrats are now on the offensive. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) have derided Blunt’s measure as “extreme” and “dangerous,” claiming that “It puts politics between women and their healthcare.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) warned, “This would gut the protections that were established in the Affordable Care Act and open a Pandora’s box that allows employers to deny coverage for virtually anything they might object to” and yesterday, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that amendment would permit insurers or employers to discriminate against women:

“I am shocked that Senator Brown jumped in to support such an extreme measure,” Warren told me by phone just now. “This is an all new attack on health care. Any insurance company could leave anyone without health care, just when they need it most.” [...]

“This is an extreme attack on every one of us,” Warren said. “It opens the door to outright discrimination. It would let insurance companies and corporations cut off pregnant women, overweight guys, older Americans, or anyone — because some executive claims it’s part of his moral code. Maybe that wouldn’t happen, but I don’t want to take the chance.”

Indeed, under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Individuals too can opt out of coverage if it is contrary to their religious or moral beliefs, radically undermining “the basic principle of insurance, which involves pooling the risks for all possible medical needs of all enrollees.” As the National Women’s Law Center explains, Blunt’s language is vague enough that “insurers may be able to sell plans that do not cover services required by the new health care law to an entire market because one individual objects, so all consumers in a market lose their right to coverage of the full range of critical health services.” As a result, a man “purchasing an insurance plan offered to women and men could object to maternity coverage, so the plan would not have to cover it, even though such coverage is required as part of the essential health benefits.”

Significantly, two Republican women senators — Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME) — have come out in support of Obama’s modified contraception rule and may oppose Blunt’s measure.

Read the full amendment here.

Fatima Najiy contributed to this post.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)

But Republicans and some conservative Catholic groups are not satisfied with the accommodation and hope to use their false claim of “religious persecution” to deny women access to preventive health services. Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is pushing an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it:

(6) RESPECTING RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE WITH REGARD TO SPECIFIC ITEMS OR SERVICES —

“(A) FOR HEALTH PLANS. — A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) (or preventive health services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Services Act), to fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill any other requirement under this title on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because —

“(i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or

“(ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.

Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Individuals too can opt out of coverage if it is contrary to their religious or moral beliefs, radically undermining “the basic principle of insurance, which involves pooling the risks for all possible medical needs of all enrollees.” As the National Women’s Law Center explains, Blunt’s language is vague enough that “insurers may be able to sell plans that do not cover services required by the new health care law to an entire market because one individual objects, so all consumers in a market lose their right to coverage of the full range of critical health services.” As a result, a man “purchasing an insurance plan offered to women and men could object to maternity coverage, so the plan would not have to cover it, even though such coverage is required as part of the essential health benefits.”

Read the full amendment here.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) made the rounds of local media outlets today to push the GOP message, but ran into some trouble with the facts when he claimed that credit rating agencies like Standard & Poor agree with Republicans during a radio interview with KTRS in St. Louis:

BLUNT: If you read any of the rating agencies — Standard & Poor and the other agencies — they don’t say we’re in trouble because of the debt ceiling or that we might default, they say we’re in trouble and we could be downgraded as an economy to invest in, in our bonds and everything, because we’re spending way too much money relative to our abilities to produce goods and resources.

Listen here:

In fact, the exact opposite is true:

Standard & Poor’s would cut the U.S. credit rating to its lowest level and Moody’s Investors Service said it will probably reduce its ranking if the government fails to increase the debt limit, leading to a default.

S&P would lower its sovereign top-level AAA ranking to D, the last rung on its scale if the U.S. can’t pay its debt, John Chambers, chairman of the company’s sovereign rating committee, said today. Moody’s said it would probably assign a position in the Aa range, or within three steps of its highest level.

An executive for the third major rating agency, Fitch, told Rueters, “If we reach the second of August without a lifting of the debt ceiling, Fitch would assign a rating watch negative to the U.S. sovereign ratings.”

When facts get in the way of the narrative, Blunt just changes the facts. Meanwhile, several Republican lawmakers, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), have suggested that default would actually be good for the U.S., despite the credit rating agencies’ dire warnings.

Following ThinkProgress’ report, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) wrote to the FEC — a federal agency that has ironically “been rendered toothless by its Republican members” — asking it to launch an investigation and to insist that foreign companies prove whether their funds had been used in campaign activities. Today, outside of a fundraiser for Nevada’s GOP U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle at the National Republican Campaign Committee, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, if he would comment on the story. After hearing the question, Blunt quickly turned and began walking away briskly towards the Union Station building. He initially simply ignored the question, then took out his phone and pressed it against his face. Eventually, Blunt replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about” and told ThinkProgress to “talk to the Chamber”:

TP: Congressman Blunt? We reported at ThinkProgress yesterday that the Chamber of Commerce is accepting money from foreign corporations and using that same bank account for buying attack ads. If you’re elected to the Senate will you investigate this? Excuse me, Roy Blunt? Sir, the Chamber of Commerce has admitted that it’s accepting foreign money from businesses like the Bahrain Petroleum Company and they’re using that same bank account to run attack ads. Will you investigate the use of foreign money in our election[s]?

TP: Congressman Blunt? Pardon me, Congressman Blunt? Congressman Blunt? [BLUNT takes out cellphone] We reported yesterday at ThinkProgress that the Chamber of Commerce is fundraising from foreign companies, in India and Bahrain and many other places, uh, they’re using that same bank account run attack ads. Are you going to investigate this? [...]

BLUNT: …And the event went fine. Good. Good. Really? Okay.

TP: Excuse me, Congressman Blunt? I have a membership application that the Chamber of Commerce is distributing in Bahrain asking for funds for the same bank account – the same campaign account – used to run campaign advertisements here in America. Do you have any comment on that?

BLUNT: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Talk to the Chamber, I have no idea.

Watch it:

In August, Blunt announced that he received the Chamber’s endorsement. Currently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ads trashing Blunt’s Democratic opponent, Robin Carnahan. The ads are run out of the same 501(c)(6) account used to fund raise from foreign sources.

Notably, Blunt has voted for many of the Chamber’s top priorities, including unfettered free trade deals, protecting tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas, and against Wall Street regulatory reform.

According to the North County Times, Issa is now “refusing to debate his Democratic opponent” Howard Katz (D-CA), after personally agreeing to do so “when the two chatted at a July 3 parade” in Oceanside, CA. Katz contends that Issa said he’d “certainly” debate him “on a date that works with my schedule so I can come.” But now, Issa’s spokesman Kurt Bardella insists that “the topic of debate never came up” and, “because the economy is a free fall,” his job in “continuing the process of oversight” outweighs is responsibility to participate in a debate:

“I was asking him about a debate and he said, ‘Certainly, just make it on a date that works with my schedule so I can come,’” said Katz, a Temecula resident.

Bardella denied that Issa, R-Vista, ever agreed to debate whether he should continue to represent the district that includes much of North County and Southwest Riverside County.

“The topic of a debate never came up,” Bardella said Tuesday. “He (Issa) has never made any kind of promise or commitment to debate.”[...]

Bardella said Issa is concentrating on his role as the ranking Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a powerful panel he will lead if the GOP wins enough seats on Nov. 2 to wrest control of the House from the Democrats.

“This is a situation where the economy is in a free fall and the people are in a free fall,” Bardella said. “The congressman is focused on doing his job and continuing the process of conducting oversight.”

Katz insists that Bardella is telling a “fib” and even released a picture of the two talking at the parade “where he swears the promise was made.” Katz needed the debate because he is in a “‘David versus Goliath’ matchup” against “one of the wealthiest members of Congress.” Libertarian candidate Mike Paster (CA) shares Katz’s debate frustrations after “he was unsuccessful in repeated efforts to get someone from Issa’s office to respond to his call for a debate” last week.

While Issa may have specific reasons to be wary of public scrutiny, his debate denial reflects a growing number of House candidates “who are flat-out refusing” to debate challengers. Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who has never formally debated a Democratic challenger, told his opponent that he hadn’t “earned” the right to debate him. And while Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is willing to debate his opponent, he is backing out of all but two of the debates he originally proposed.

But like nearly every other member of the Republican caucus, Blunt is trying to have it both ways. Despite Blunt’s assertion that the the stimulus is a complete failure, he has attended multiple groundbreaking ceremonies for stimulus-funded projects. Local Missouri papers have praised Blunt’s role in securing the projects, without noting his efforts to kill their funding. In other cases, he has sent out press releases claiming credit for stimulus-funded programs:

– In July 2009, Blunt attended a groundbreaking for the Neosho National Fish Hatchery in Neosho, Missouri. Earlier that year, the project gained two stimulus grants, one totaling $1.04 million and another for $100,000. Some local media outlets have reported the hypocrisy, while others have not.

– Blunt attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Ozone Disinfection System in the City of Springfield made possible by a $16 million combination low-interest loan and direct grant from the stimulus. As local blogger Jim Lee notes, Blunt’s ceremony unveiling the funding coincided with the one year anniversary of the stimulus. When approached about his opposition to the stimulus, Blunt simply smiled and said “no comment.”

– As FiredUpMissouri reported, Blunt’s office announced $942,000 for homeless assistance programs in Springfield and Joplin in February of 2010. The funds were provided through the stimulus, but Blunt made no mention of the funding source in his release.

As ThinkProgress has documented, Republican lawmakers and even GOP leadership have staked their political fortunes on lying to the public, claiming the stimulus failed to create jobs, while trying to take credit in their home districts for stimulus programs.

A look at that plan shows half of those savings — $1 trillion — would come from Blunt’s proposal to repeal the health care reform package…Repealing health care reform would eliminate $1 trillion in spending, but it would also eliminate the $1 trillion in tax and fee increases and Medicare reductions that are in the law as well. The net effect of health care repeal on the federal deficit is, roughly, zero.

Actually, contrary to Helling’s assertion, repealing the Affordable Care Act wouldn’t have zero effect on the deficit: it would actively increase it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the bill would increase the deficit by $455 billion over the next ten years. But the point remains that the only way Blunt’s push for repeal works as a deficit reduction measure is if he plans to keep all of the tax increases and Medicare savings, without actually giving anyone any additional health care. And as The Wonk Room explains, Blunt’s other deficit reduction plans are equally unimpressive.

Blunt included in the plan what he has claimed is $2 trillion in spending cuts, which would presumably be used to either reduce the deficit or to fund some of the massive tax cuts that he’s embraced. “In this plan, Roy identified over two trillion dollars in cuts right off the bat that can be taken out of government,” said former Missouri treasurer Sarah Steelman, who has endorsed Blunt’s campaign.

But in what he charitably calls an “accounting error,” the Kansas City Star’s Dave Helling notes that fully one half of Blunt’s spending cuts aren’t actually spending cuts at all:

A look at that plan shows half of those savings — $1 trillion — would come from Blunt’s proposal to repeal the health care reform package…Repealing health care reform would eliminate $1 trillion in spending, but it would also eliminate the $1 trillion in tax and fee increases and Medicare reductions that are in the law as well. The net effect of health care repeal on the federal deficit is, roughly, zero.

Actually, contrary to Helling’s assertion, repealing the Affordable Care Act wouldn’t have zero effect on the deficit: it would actively increase it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the bill would increase the deficit by $143 billion over the next ten years.

But the point remains that the only way Blunt’s push for repeal works as a deficit reduction measure is if he plans to keep all of the tax increases and Medicare savings, without actually giving anyone any additional health care.

Plenty of other spending cuts that Blunt suggests are equally ill-informed. He proposes repealing the remaining stimulus funds, including those dedicated to middle class tax cuts. He also says he’d cut an unidentified “wasteful welfare program,” which is presumably the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Emergency Fund that House Republicans like to cite all the time. But it’s actually a successful work program that is supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country, including 4,600 in Blunt’s own state.

Of course, Blunt is far from the only one who thinks that repealing the Affordable Care Act is a legitimate deficit reduction strategy. For instance, New Hampshire’s Republican Senate candidate, Kelly Ayotte, has made it the centerpiece of her deficit reduction plan.