Station: KHOW, 630 AM

Show:     Ross Kaminsky Show

Guests:  Brauchler

Link:      http://khow.iheart.com/media/podcast-ross-kaminsky-rosskaminsky/

Date:      April 6, 2017

Topics:   CO Senate President Kevin Grantham, Conservative label, Cirular Firing Squad, Politics of Personal Destruction, United States Army, Colonel, Transportation Funding, HB17-1242, TABOR, Taxpayers Bill of Rights, Leadership, Affability Management, Governor Bill Owens, TRANS Bonds, Federal Gasoline Tax, CO State Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, Medicaid Expansion, Obamacare, Affordable Care Act, Co-Pays, Able-Bodied, Childless, Medicaid Recipients, Working Age, Petition Process, Caucus, Assembly, Purple State, Retail Politics, Front Range, Metro Denver, Roads, Potholes, Nathan Dunlap, Death Penalty, Capital Punishment, 2nd Amendment, Guns, Marijuana, Amendment 64

Click Here for Audio

(NOTE:  These notes were compiled while listening to the interview with Congressman Coffman.  All comments noted are paraphrased, unless specifically identified as direct quotes.) 

 

HOST ROSS KAMINSKY:  Why are you the best candidate?

DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR COLORADO’S 18^TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT AND CANDIDATE FOR COLORADO GOVERNOR, GEORGE BRAUCHLER:

• Leadership
  • CO has been starved of leadership at the top for years
  • Affability is no substitute for leadership
• CO is the only home I’ve ever known
  • All the life events here
• Professionally, I’m from here
• My service to community, done here
• In the Army
• When you look at the issues on the Ross Kaminsky show, we’re in a position that we don’t need to be in
• Leadership  — I intend to give an option to the voters that allows me to exercise my skills

KAMINSKY:  Transportation – legislature is debating HB1242 – $700M tax increase – cuz leg has raided GF for other things

BRAUCHLER:

• I’m a big Kevin Grantham fan
  • He’s a great TABOR defender
  • He has been effective as senator and senate pres
• But, our roads SUCK!  — I drive the same roads you do
• Quality of life is adversely affected by bumper time, potholes
• We’ve got to do something
• But I’m not resolved to idea that we have to raise taxes
  • We waste a lot of money in our budget
    • Our budget grows and grows
    • Our budget has exploded
  • There are other alternatives
    • Like owens
      • Funded t-rex without raising taxes
      • Bonding from his adminsitration – maybe we can extend them
      • Use federal gas tax revenue to bond road maintenance funds
    • I like Jerry Sonnenbergs alternative

KAMINSKY:  Difficult question:  a lot of the blow up in state budget has come from Dems and Hick expanding Medicaid per Obamacare.  Would you be willing to say, we can’t act like all this stuff is free.  People are taking advantage of welfare and Medicaid programs

BRAUCHLER:

• The problem you’ve identified is significant
• Medicaid is ticking time bomb in our budget
  • It has tripled in size and doubled the # of people covered
  • We used to be funded by feds 100% — and it’s designed to ratchet back from feds and more on us
  • Now we’re at 90%-10%
  • Nothing stopping feds from suddenly lowering their obligation and increasing ours
  • If they do that, our budget will blow up
• This expansion is strangling education and transportation
  • Money for transportation is not prioritized – it’s not in budget
  • It’s like drugs – they get you hooked on it and then increase the cost
  • If we keep drinking this koolaid of Obamacare, we won’t be able to fund ed and trans
• And you’re right about able-bodied, childless adults – making up 44% of Medicaid recipients
  • I’m not saying let’s kick them off the rolls
  • But my goodness, can’t we have a conversation about how do we protect those that are most in need of Medicaid
  • Versus for those who get it right now
  • [and probably shouldn’t]
  •  We should ask them to put more skin in the game
    • Increase co-pays
    • $2.00 is not enough to affect behavior
    • And we can’t change it cuz of rules of Obamacare
• Flexibility is needed from DC on use of those dollars and as Gov, I’ll go get it.

KAMINSKY:  1 quarter of the state is on Medicaid – I hope that someone (you) has the cojones and can make the hard call to remove some people from Medicaid

BRAUCHLER:

• Absolutely (I will)

KAMINSKY:  Going to Convention, not petition process, to get to the primary?  Says something about you as a candidate.

BRAUCHLER:

• I haven’t publicly foreclosed on the possibility of petitioning on
• But I’m invested in the grassroots aspects of getting elected– earning votes
  • This is how I got to be DA in 18^th
• Now, in age of social media & campaign finance, people of means (own $ or 3^rd party) can get their name out, get sigs
  • Don’t need to have face-to-face interaction
  • Don’t need to “earn” votes
  • You just:
    • Send out flyers and mailers
    • Go on TV
    • Get out on the internet
• We’ll do all those things, but there’s only one way that guarantees you’ll have to get out to the whole state
  • Press the flesh
  • Look people in the eye
  • Answer their questions
  • Retail politics
• I’m invested in really trying to look hard at how  we’re going to get on the ballot by going through the assembly process
  • But I haven’t foreclosed any other options

KAMINSKY:  I used to see Colorado as conservative, but we’re purple – cuz of all the people moving here from failed Dem states. (NY, CA) and so we have not seen a lot of success with R candidates for Governor.  We’ve only won twice since the 1974 election.  What about you makes you the most likely to win the governor’s office?

BRAUCHLER:

• A couple other facts are even more disturbing
• And I’ll take issue with this in a very respectful way —  we won’t be purple anymore if we don’t win this race
• We’ve only won 1 open seat for gov in the past century and that was Owens
  • We’ve won incumbency
  • But only 1 open seat
• I think I have the best chance to win
  • I’m Coloradan
• We’re not Republicans – we are Colorado Republicans
  • We’re unique
  • We’re different
  • Not soft ideology
  • Not sea level ideology (lower ideology)
  • We’re a blend of big party values and Colorado values
    • Guns – we embrace the 2^nd amendment
    • Marijuana (55% in favor of A64)
  • I understand that.
• I’m not wedded, lockstep, to any party, person, ideology,
  • I’m conservative – the only conservative out there
• Colorado needs someone out there
  • beating the bushes,
  • shaking hands,
  • talking with voters
  • committed!  —
  • and recognizing that we’re not doing the best that we can.
• Our economy is good in some parts – outside of i-25 corridor, recovery has yet to take hold
  • I recognize that
• Colorado is much more that the front range, metro area

KAMINSKY:  Nathan Dunlap – Death penalty is less and less popular in U.S., maybe because it’s expensive.  Would you put him to death?

BRAUCHLER:

• I would not be that person –
  • it would be the jury his attorneys helped to pick at his trial
  • I would embrace the rule of law
• Yes, I would reinstitute the sentence that that mass-murderer earned
• No state is getting rid of Death Penalty – including CA – some with a expedited appellate process

KAMINSKY:  Thank you for you time.  we’ll be talking again.  Go get your kids off to school.