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March 20, 2010 06:09 PM UTC

Jane Norton: "First" To Call For Department of Education's Abolition

  • 21 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

More forwarded tracker video of Senate candidate Jane Norton, this latest from earlier in the month at a metro-area candidate forum:

A couple of notable statements in this 30 seconds of video–Norton begins by asserting that “the only sector growing in our economy right now is the federal government.” It’s a catchy sound bite, but it’s also a brazen lie you can see debunked on every business page–the economy has been growing again since the second quarter of last year, and the only politicians who won’t admit it are those who willfully refuse to for electoral purposes.

The second item we find interesting in this video clip is Norton’s justification for ‘abolishing’ the Department of Education. Watch her slow her cadence as she says the words “five thousand employees,” referring to the Department of Ed’s payroll–sounds like a hell of a lot, doesn’t it?

Sounds a little less dramatic when you realize that the federal government has about two million civilian employees–she sure is getting a lot of mileage out of a proposal to ‘abolish’ 0.25% (note the decimal) of the federal government’s payroll, don’t you think? If the average non-radicalized general election voter figures out that Norton was making all this grandstanding hay over a mere 0.25% of the federal government’s payroll, and the part most concerned with their children’s education at that–how do you think they will respond?

Now as we’ve said before, we don’t actually think that Norton’s more radical policy prescriptions in front of the “Tea Party” audiences she’s been touring will stay in her script through the general election cycle, and at some point she’s going to have to distance herself from the wacky things she’s been saying to win the primary. The problem for Norton is the growing permanent archive of such statements outside her campaign’s control, which doesn’t seem to be tapering off even after they kicked out the camera guy, and could be the only part of this that endures past August.

Comments

21 thoughts on “Jane Norton: “First” To Call For Department of Education’s Abolition

  1. it’s also a brazen lie you can see debunked on every business page–the economy has been growing again since the second quarter of last year

    The second half of last year was slowly coming back to where we were before the Great Recession. But so far this year – oh wow! For my company January was our best month ever, this month may be even more, and this will be our best quarter ever.

    As to the Dept of Ed, I’ll agree K-12 is a disaster. But those of us with high tech companies need to see this fixed, not abandoned. We’re looking for candidates who will address this issue, not run away from it.

    1. I’d like to see if fixed, but my belief that A-Holes like Mike Merrifield would ever let us fix our education system if it cost the people in charge any of their power.

      What were graduation rates before the DOEd’s inception compared to now?

      1. You and I are probably in 99% agreement on K-12. But we need politicians who propose solutions. If Jane Norton proposed close down ED and replace it with X where X was a credible solution to the mess we have – she would then have my undivided attention.

        But shutting down ED, when at present it is the best thing we have going in its “race to the top” – that’s not a solution.

        ps – I agree, a pox on all fellow travellers who put union job security over the financial future of our children.

        1. Privatize the whole system.  Look at what a bunch of nonsense is going on just on the DPS board.  These people have no business near our future.

          The teachers (90% of the one’s I’ve met) are absolutely not the problem.

          1. That if a reasonable voucher system was proposed, I would relucently support it. I’d prefer to stick with public education but the K-12 system, boards, administrators, unions, & teachers (some) are so resistant to improvement, that vouchers may be our only possible solution.

            With that said, you would then need a very strong system of oversight and so that would make the federal and state departments of education much more important, not less so.

  2. Presuming you become the GOP candidate, we Dems will love this in the fall.  I think a lot of Indies will see the inevitable anti-Norton ads and will say, “She what?????”

  3. would be abolishing the U.S. Senate. Just think of the money we would save, and we wouldn’t have to put up with the obstructionist “nattering nabobs of negativism” present and future that permeate that most esteemed corporatist institution.  

    1. Nay, we don’t have to abolish it, which after all would take the unanimous consent of the states or a whole new constitution. (Constitutions sez: “no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”) We simply need a little tiny tweak to the constitution so that the Senate has exactly the same sort of power as the House of Lords in the United Kingdom.

  4. Before the caucuses this week I received an email from Ms. Norton.  In her email, she included a jumbled list of so called program cuts (20% of nondefense discretionary spending) plus the proporsal thast the federal government forego collecting withholding taxes from “small businesses” (small business was not defined) for three years. By not collecting withholding taxes the deficit will increase not decrease.

    One has to wonder what motivates Ms. Norton. Something more than controlling or reducing the deficit. I’ve mentioned before that the church she belongs to (the Vineyard Church) believes in and advocates Dominion Theology. Dominionists believe all secular laws should be replaced by biblically based laws. Their first target is to terminate the federal government except for the defense department.

    Dominionists also believe the United States is ordained by God to spread Christianity throughout the World. That would mean eternal war.

    The question is obvious. Does Ms. Norton believe the theology of her church should become the basis of public policy and law in the United States?

    Her suggested policies appear to be in the direction of destroying the federal government except for the defense department.

    She needs to explain herself and what she believes.

    1. Her suggested policies appear to be in the direction of destroying the federal government except for the defense department.

      …a good start.

      1. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume you didn’t mean to accidentally regurgitate a far right wing canard–that the entire federal government serves absolutely no purpose and should be destroyed.

        If you did mean it, I guess the Teabaggers will be thrilled to pick up another member.

          1. I’d call that…

               Her suggested policies appear to be in the direction of destroying the federal government except for the defense department.

            …a good start.

            Seems a little, oh I don’t know, what’s the word I’m looking for here–extremist–to suggest the entire government should be abolished except for the part where they get to keep the guns and the nukes? Oh yeah, genius idea there.

    2. the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, the War on Terror, and the War on Drugs

      So let’s destroy the federal government except DOD and DEA. We can save enough to keep the Bush tax cuts to the rich.  

  5. Let’s LAY ‘EM OFF! No more jobs! No more jobs!

    Psst, Lt. Gov. Norton: The Department of the Air Force isn’t in the Constitution either. Neither is Homeland Security. You may just be setting a precedent that “lets the terrorists win.”

  6. Liberals, why can’t we just give the money directly to the states? YOu don’t get it do you? What she says is closer to what the people want, and that is why she will win in Nov

    1. News flash, Genius: There’s over five million people in Colorado, and they don’t all think alike. Given that we currently have a Democratic governor, Democratically controlled state senate, Democratically controlled state house of representatives, two Democratic U.S. senators, and five Democratic congressman out of seven total, strictly from an empirical point of view, Democrats have far more right than you to claim to represent “what the people want,” since, as of the last time the people spoke on the matter, that’s who they chose.

      But to make that claim would be as ridiculous as the claim you made, despite it being more defensible. The reality is that there is a spectrum of perspectives and beliefs, and varying degrees of persuadability and educatability among the people who fall at varying points along that spectrum. To say otherwise is just to declare where you fall on the spectrum, what your degree of educatability is, and that you believe that by declaring something to be true reality somehow magically responds by making it more true.

      Good luck with that.

      1. but too many 4, 5 and 6 syllable words for the warrior I’m afraid.

        Shorter:  a whole bunch of people voted D in 2008.  Not so many voted R.  What  most people wanted isn’t what you wanted. You scream, but no pony, no magic, real life is hard.

  7. and i met her on several occasions when she was traveling with the gov, owens that is. she is typical of the lovely women who surrounded the gov, but, she’s not the brightest bulb. we can do better.

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