Cotton goes on offense on Social Security

Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is going on offense with a trio of new ads, firing back against Democratic attacks on his stance on Social Security.

{mosads}One spot features Cotton with his mother promising that every vote he “has cast — and will cast — protects and preserves benefits for seniors like Mom,” while a second plays a clip of Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) in 2011 opening the door on raising the Social Security retirement age.

A third accuses Pryor of voting to give “illegal immigrants Social Security for work they did with forged identities.”

Pryor’s campaign has attacked Cotton in the past for backing the Republican Study Committee’s budget that would have raised Social Security’s minimum age from 65 to 70 and adopted a less generous formula for raising Social Security benefits to offset inflation.

The tight battle between Cotton and Pryor has long focused on who will fight harder for Social Security and Medicare, with Pryor and his allies airing attacks as early as last spring on Cotton’s positions on those issues. Cotton’s latest ads seek to level the playing field on entitlement programs, and churn up conservative fury over illegal immigration.

Pryor released a new ad of his own on Thursday, pushing back against Cotton’s accusations that he voted to cut Medicare when he backed ObamaCare.

“My opponent knows I did not cut Medicare benefits, I cut waste and protected benefits,” he says in the new spot. “Making sure seniors get the healthcare we need is responsible. Overpaying insurance companies isn’t.”

Watch the third ad here: