600 KCOL Mornings, Cory Gardner, 10/20/2010
Station: KCOL
Show: 600 KCOL Mornings
Guest: Cory Gardner
Link: http://www.600kcol.com/main.html
Date: 10/20/2010
Topics: Bailouts TARP, Taxes, Wind Tax.
FALLEN: And the one person I hope that does have a sense of humor this morning, state Rep. Corey Gardiner. KCOL mornings.
GARDNER: Hey guys. How are you guys doing?
FALLEN: Doing great. I am still electrified by the environment last night. I thought it was an outstanding debate. And I’ve got to tell you, you looked like you are having some fun.
GARDNER: You know it was a great opportunity to really show a clear contrast between two governing philosophies. The government philosophy of someone who believes more government is the answer and somebody who believes that liberty in our Constitution and getting back to the fact that we know this country is best when we run our own lives and our own businesses and our own families. It was an excited crowd, a lot of energy. It is almost as if there is election coming up.
FALLEN: Thirteen days in counting my friend. Now, you wasted no time firing the first salvo. About 16 minutes into the one hour long debate when you set my opponent is running commercials where she said she voted against the bailouts. She wasn’t even in Congress when the bailouts vote occurred. Now she responded, Betsy Markey did, by saying I was in Congress when we did the second vote on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, also called the bailout, and I did vote against it. But she added that I don’t need to be lectured by someone who actually wants to create a tax on the wind in this country. In my day, earth winder and fire was a band, not a new source of revenue. So let’s go ahead and break that down.
GRADNER: Absolutely. Sorry Gail go ahead.
FALLEN: No, I want to start with your comment that she wasn’t even present for the vote and then I want to move on to dust in the wind. As is the case may be.
GARDNER: She claims that she voted against the bailouts and she wasn’t in Congress when the bailouts came up for a vote. Her second vote on the bill was a symbolic vote. The Senate had already voted to release the money. So the money was released, the House only voted for political posturing purposes. It had absolutely no teeth of law; it was a symbolic gesture only. In fact, if you go back to the 2008 campaign, when Congresswoman Musgrave said she was going to vote against the bailout, she was criticized by Betsy Markey in the Wall Street Journal for her opposition to the bill. The other thing that I pointed out, she’s voted for Cash for Clunkers, she voted for the bailout of the states and the labor unions, she voted for the stimulus, which is certainly a bailout by a number of measures. And I wanted to make sure that the voters were clear the level of spending that this member of Congress committed the American people to.
FALLEN: Now what about this flap over taxing the wind?
GARDNER: Like I said last night, I usually deferred to members of Congress for matters that pertain to what is windy or not. And that was certainly full of wind. The Colorado Constitution makes it clear that in order to increase taxes, you have to have a vote of the people. My bill was to protect private property rights. There’s nothing in that bill dealing with taxes. And I just encouraged her to read the bill because she would understand that.
MALMBERG: The she familiar with the reasoning behind the ad, saying that you wanted to tax the wind? Or was it her campaign?
GARDNER: You know I’m not sure. You would have to ask them that obviously. I believe that it is just political posturing, trying to scare people from a desperate campaign in the last weeks of the campaign.
FALLEN: Now on Tuesday, you released a new ad that criticized incumbent Rep. Betsy Markey for “voting the most fiscally irresponsible budget in history.” Well that got Rep. Markey’s hackles up to some extent because she came back and said was this just the careless mistake because carelessness could lead to recklessness. Or was this deliberate and in which case that goes to-can we trust you? The question is, did you deliberately lie? She went on to ask or was it a mistake? And unfortunately due to the restrictions of the debate, you were unable to address that accusation immediately.
GARDNER: Right, and I think it clear that Betsy Markey is going to do everything she can to take her attention and try to change is subject. Her voting record reflects that she has voted with Nancy Pelosi 94 percent of the time. And in her first 50 days of Congress alone, she voted for $1.2 trillion in new spending. That breaks down to $1 million an hour.
FALLEN: That is significant. Now Wasco Wascowitz had an interesting comments when all four candidates were asked about the nation’s burgeoning deficit and what you would do as CD 4 Representative to address that. His comment was, well we should take a look at legalizing gambling, prostitution and drugs. That caused quite a stir.
GARDNER: Well it did and I admire Ken greatly for his running for office and wanting to serve the country. It is just something that I disagree with.
MALMBERG: We look at the… there was a lot of folks that are sitting here thinking boy that is an untapped resource as you look at illegal professions in this country where there is no income taxed being gleaned from those individuals. If you could somehow tax it and get them into the legal coffers, how much money could be raised? We already have gambling, we have lottery in just about all the states.
FALLWN: Seems to me that the legalization of marijuana is certainly on the way.
MALMBERG: Look at Colorado, but have marijuana stores already. So you have gambling, you have marijuana, Nevada has prostitution. Aren’t we already there?
GARDNER: Well again it is just something that I disagree with. I don’t think we ought to be encouraging a government to levy taxes on some of those activities.
FALLEN: Now Corey, I heard a rumor to the effect, even though this was billed as the only CD 4 debate, that there might be another one in the offing. Perhaps tomorrow? Any truth to that?
GARDNER: They’re actually is. I am not sure if I would characterize it as the debate or more of a roundtable. PBS, I have been on a PBS show where Congresswoman Markey was invited to and ended up with an empty chair next me because she had turned them down as well. But this will be a 26 minutes or so roundtable on PBS. So I am not sure exactly what kind of format that will be. Certainly there will not be any members in the audience unfortunately because we’ll be a PBS studio. I am looking forward to being there and looking forward to talking to the people of Colorado through PBS. But it will be on Colorado State of Mind filmed tomorrow. And I’m not quite sure when that airs.
FALLEN: Okay good to know. It’s getting down to the wire, 13 days out. What are the polls telling you Corey?
GARDNER: I will tell you what, we are in a great position but we have a lot of hard work ahead of us. Nobody has worked harder throughout the selection. Nobody will work harder over the next two weeks. There is a clear difference between leading in October and winning in November and we plan on doing everything we can to make sure that this country wins on November 2nd with somebody who understands that we’ve got to get our economy moving forward. We’ve got to start creating jobs. And that are best opportunities lie ahead.
FALLEN: And I think that we can trust that you would not, if you are successful in your bid, adopt that Washingtonian mantra, “Don’t just stand there, spend.”
GARDNER: That is right.
FALLEN: Spend something.
GARDNER: That was a great statement that we will her able to make clear last night. That is their mantra.
MALMBERG: That was a great line.
FALLEN: Corey, thanks so much. Where can we find more by you and your campaign?
GARDNER: Join us that Corey Gartner.com on face the computer. I would be honored to earn your support and I look forward to seeing you the next couple of weeks.
