Partisan attack ads paid for by the Conservative party aren't the only politically attuned TV spots hitting the air waves these days.

A new taxpayer-funded, government campaign touting "Canada's Economic Action Plan" began last month at exactly the same time as the Conservative party ads.

The Canada Revenue Agency is running TV spots during some of the highest-rated television programs that appear to link tax measures taken in 2006 to the Conservative government's recession-fighting budget of 2009.

The campaign rolled out January 17th, the same day as the Conservative ads attacking Liberal Michael Ignatieff.

A week earlier, the federal Human Resources department began airing prime-time Economic Action Plan spots advertising federal job skills programs -- even though the costliest of these programs are set to expire at the end of next month.

The government ad buy is just the latest surge in a taxpayer-funded Economic Action Plan that some critics have long complained is a thinly veiled propaganda vehicle for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government.