Washington ? Countering President Bush’s negative ads, John Kerry begins airing a commercial today that faults the Republican for “misleading America” and rebuts the president’s claim that the Democrat has proposed a $900 billion tax increase.

Kerry’s advertising buy is about $2 million, far less than the roughly $6 million the Bush-Cheney campaign will spend on broadcast ads alone. The Kerry commercial poses the question: “Doesn’t America deserve more from its president than misleading negative ads?”

Bush started running the first negative ads of the general election campaign Friday, calling Kerry “wrong on taxes” and “wrong on defense.” The characterizations all but forced the four-term Massachusetts senator to respond as he’s trying to rebuild his campaign treasury, depleted after an expensive primary fight.

Kerry’s 30-second ad — his first of the general election — criticizes Bush but also offers “a new direction for America” focused on protecting U.S. jobs, controlling health care costs and lessening the budget deficit.

Bush’s campaign called the ad “a futile attempt to obscure the fact that John Kerry’s new spending proposals would result in a tax hike for all Americans.”

With far less money than the $160 million-plus in Bush’s campaign account, Kerry will run the ad initially for one week in 16 battleground states. However, aides acknowledge that the ads will be at lower levels and in fewer media markets than Bush’s spots.