Wake Up with Randy Corporon, Ken Buck, January 13, 2014
Station: KLZ, 560 AM
Show: Wake Up with Randy Corporon
Guests: Buck
Link: http://www.560thesource.com/
Date: January 13, 2014
Topics:
HOST RANDY CORPORON: I was at the opening meeting of the South Jefferson County Tea Party, and one of the candidates that spoke there stepped up in front of the crowd and said, “I’ve been instructed by the Republican–.” Now, I’m not quoting him very well, but, “I’ve been instructed by, I think, the typical advisors that I should stay away from the Tea Party.” And he said, “I’m here to tell you, that ain’t going to happen with me.” And you’ve had no fear of – you’re not trying to avoid contact with the Tea party. You’ve spoken at the Arapahoe Tea Party. You’re on brand new live and local, conservative talk radio show here on 560 KLZ. You’re a Tea Party guy, aren’t you?
WELD COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE KEN BUCK: You know, I am a Republican candidate. And I am a conservative Republican candidate. I share many of the same values with the Tea Party. And I have to tell you, I am so disappointed when I look at [Washington] D.C. and I see the infighting that’s going on in the Republican Party there, and some of the same tension here in Colorado. It makes absolutely no sense to me. If we fight among ourselves in Colorado, we don’t stand any chance of winning an election against the Democrats. They are much more disciplined and united. And so, while I certainly have disagreements with other Tea Party candidates –and heck, my wife and I don’t agree on what to eat for dinner, it doesn’t mean we don’t get along. But, I certainly believe in the core values of the Tea Party and 9/12 groups in Colorado.
CORPORON: Yeah. Limited government, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty. I mean, how hard is that?
BUCK: Right, and you know, those things, if we had stuck with that plan in the last seventy, eighty years, we’d be in such a better position now than we are. I was just amazed. I was talking to someone the other day about the balanced budget amendment effort in the 1990’s. And we were one vote away from getting the Balanced Budget Amendment in the Constitution. If we had had that vote, uh, the debt at that time was less than $5 trillion. And now we’re looking at over $17 trillion. This country has taken a lurch to the left and we really need to get back to some of the core values [inaudible].
CORPORON: […] What has motivated you to run, Ken? What are the values that you will bring to the position, if elected?
BUCK: You know, there are many. But, to mention one in particular, I – as so many of us, I’m so, so tired of the debt piling up in Washington D.C.. We have a form of government written into our Constitution which is a limited federal government, that has certain enumerated powers, and has taken on some other powers that the Supreme Court has ruled are constitutional under the commerce clause, or other things. And agree or disagree with that, that’s where our government is. But it has gone far, far beyond that with the scope of activities that the federal government has taken on. And I just feel that what We need to get back to is a limited form of federal government. We need to make sure that the states and the local governments are doing their jobs. And just one quick example: Education. The best education decisions are made by parents. They’re made by the consumers of the education. They’re not made by the federal government, some federal bureaucrat in Washington D.C. making decisions about Common Core. I oppose Common Core. And I oppose an expanded Department of Education, whether, frankly, it’s done through a Republican president, like No Child Left Behind, or a Democrat president. The Department of Edu—the federal government should not be in a central role in Education in this country.
CORPORON: It’s a brand new story. […] The Obama administration is proposing education mandates that his own education can’t meet. They’re proposing that students must graduate with less than 12% debt-to-income ratio, or debt-to-discretionary income ratio lower than 30%. I don’t know exactly what that means yet, but it’s – this is another example of what you’re talking about: top-down government from Washington, imposing new standards because they have some masterminded plan that they think is going to make things better. It never works out that way, does it?
BUCK: Well, if you look at fed government poking its nose into education and getting more and more involved over the years, we used to be the number one country in the world, in terms of K-12 education, in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. And that’s about the time that the federal government decided it could do education better. Now, depending on, you know, what analysis you look at, we’re somewhere in the 20s. And some of them have us in the low twenties—in the 27, 28position in the developed world. So, clearly, the federal government has not created the kinds of innovation and progress that you’d hope to see in education.
[…] What else is fueling your run this time around?
Well, clearly, I have been all around all 64 counties in Colorado, and I can tell you that Obamacare is one of the umbrella issues. Everywhere you go, people are upset that federal government took over – or, has tried to take over the healthcare industry in America, and particularly the health insurance. I also am hearing a lot from people, and am agreeing with them, that the federal government’s role in firearms has gone far too far. The bad bills that passed in our state legislature tried to limit magazine sizes to 15 rounds. The bill in the United States Senate that Mark Udall voted for tried to limit magazine size to less than 10 rounds. And those are just two issues that are overwhelming. But the issue that really, really bothered me –
[…] Let me just hand it back to you and you can pick up where you left off.
Sure. I was saying that the – that two of the umbrella issues, two of the issues that I hear everywhere I go are Obamacare and Second Amendment. But another issue that is just so sad in so many ways are the rising energy costs as a result of Senator Udall’s mandates, that he has advocated for and cause the price of energy to increase. And so many people are finding it difficult to pay their energy bills and are having to make tough choices about whether they are buying food, or whether they are putting gas in their car, or the other impacts that are in their lives. And I think that the liberals in Washington D.C. are so short sighted because they are wealthy, because they can afford higher taxes, or because they can afford higher energy prices. They really don’t consider the plight of the most vulnerable in this country. And those are the folks that are getting squeezed by increased energy costs.
The progressive left is shutting down coal production. They’re running interference against safe, and efficient fracking of natural gas and oil resources. Colorado could fly out of its economic doldrums, but more importantly, for purposes of your race, the United States could become, almost overnight, a world economic superpower, if we would simply unleash our safe and abundant natural resources.
Absolutely. And even when I go to Delta County, they are so tired of the war on coal. And a lot of people don’t realize, it’s not just a group of coalminers who are losing their jobs. It’s the diner in town that running out of business since those coalminers aren’t coming in for lunch. It’s the Laundromat that’s going out of business. There are so many related businesses that have to shut down, and again, the hardship that this causes is something that liberals don’t understand, and Mark Udall doesn’t understand. He doesn’t go to these places, and he doesn’t talk to these people. And it’s a very sad situation that —
[…]
And energy independence is a fascinating thought, because we would not be sending money to our enemies, the people who run planes into our buildings and try to kill us, especially when we are overseas, and sometimes when we are here at home. But, the thought of energy independence, the thought of not funding some of the enemies in the Middle East is something we should really be striving towards.
[…]
You brought up a moment ago, your own experience with cancer, Ken. So I’m sure that listeners who haven’t seen you, like I have, may have questions about your health. […]
Well, I feel great. It’s really a pretty amazing story. I’m really blessed to have been cured the way I was.
But, I had stage 4 Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. And it was very serious. After just three chemos, I went in for a PET scan and they found no trace of cancer in my body. And I did three more chemos, and while I lost my hair, I gained my life. I mean, it’s a God-thing. And it’s a tribute to the amazing medicine that we have in the United States. I am feeling great now, my stamina is coming back. And I just –I love meeting people across the state, many of them are cancer survivors and have their own stories and it’s just an amazing state, and I’m just blessed to be able to participate in this campaign.
[…]
I’m sure that listeners to this station want to know about your core convictions. Where do you come from?
Yeah. I am a limited government conservative. I believe also, — you know two of my very core convictions aren’t really – they don’t really involve deep or constitutional sort of issues, but fairness and compassion. As a District Attorney, I have done my very best to be fair to people and at the same time, compassionate.
[…]
[Impacts of Obamacare on the Freedom of Expression of Religion]
Yes. This administration has ignored those of us who place our faith in the front of our beliefs and it’s just so sad that the government would even want to put itself in the position of forcing a doctor to perform an abortion, or issue birth control, or do other things that violate that doctor’s conscience.
Or a hospital. Or an employer, required to purchase certain types of insurance. It’s shortsighted. It’s, in my opinion, a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution — of the bill of Rights. And It’s just sad we’ve come to this in our country’s history.
Social conservatives are going to want to know your position on abortion.
Yes. I am pro-life. I believe that — while I understand a woman wants to be in control of her body, — it’s certainly the feeling I had when I was a cancer patient, I wanted to be in control of the decisions that
made concerning my body, there is another fundamental issue at stake, and that’s the life of the unborn child. And I hold that life is dear and precious, and believe that we have to do everything we can to protect the life of the unborn.
