Last Monday, we were talking about the $100,000 a charter school that CD-7 candidate Ryan Frazier serves on the board of received from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, known in the vernacular by Republicans as “teh stimulus.” This is a bit of a problem for Frazier, since he really likes to bash “teh stimulus”–and also enjoys promoting his charter school.
And as the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Gary Harmon reports, most everybody’s got a “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” connection to stimulus money. Today’s example, CD-3 candidate Scott Tipton:
The company, Triad Western, a southwest Colorado construction company, was founded by [Scott Tipton’s] father and uncle, but Tipton has had no say in the business since selling his part in it some 15 years ago, Tipton said.
Triad Western has contributed $3,700 this campaign cycle to Tipton and more than $13,000 to Tipton since Tipton ran for Congress first in 2006.
Triad Western received nearly $12 million in stimulus funds, federal documents show…
“Triad Western is a success story, keeping people employed to do good, much-needed work around the state of Colorado at a time of economic uncertainty,” Salazar spokeswoman Tara Trujillo said. “However, Scott Tipton, whose family started the company, says that the stimulus funding didn’t create jobs and is attacking John for voting for a bill that helped Tipton’s family business during a tough economy.”
A spokesman for Tipton’s campaign said Salazar’s campaign is reaching.
“For John Salazar to draw Scott’s family into this campaign is final evidence of how low he’s sunk to stay in power,” spokesman Sean Walsh said.
So, here’s the thing–Tipton, unlike Frazier, probably wasn’t involved with a decision to accept ARRA funds. This makes Tipton less responsible for the receipt of stimulus money by his family’s company, but like all of these connections that should make Republicans nervous when they engage in the politically faddish act of bashing ARRA, he’s still got to explain how that $12 million his father’s and uncle’s company received was a bad thing. Did Triad Western, the big construction and drilling company that employs plenty of people in CD-3, waste the $12 million it got from “teh stimulus?” Is that what this company Tipton’s dad founded does, then? Waste money?
Do you see how this becomes a bit of a problem, just past where the sound bite ends?
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If the stimulus was actually composed of infrastructure like Triad Western builds, or tax cuts like Republicans wanted to boost the economy, it would have produced growth. Tipton does not need to bash his families’ company, but hold them up as an example of what the stimulus should have been!
Instead, the stimulus was gifts to unions to teach illegal aliens Spanish. CD 3 voters will know the diff.
You’re saying that Triad Western wasted the money instead of building, or that they never received it at all?
Part of that was actually a question in the diary. Please read before posting. It helps… most people.
I love it when you Dems can’t respond to the simplest of points.
If the stimulus was all money for construction and tax cuts, not tattoo removal programs and money to educate anchor babies, more people would have supported it.
and
to “all”. You’re the one flopping around. Or maybe learn how to type what you want to say.
Even your revised statement, by necessity, admits that SOME of the stimulus was spent how you like. Or, again, admits that the candidate you’re defending is a hypocrite.
And yes, you did say that. Words – they mean things.
“You’ll never miss the cut we take.”
You know what I am talking about. If you steal a dollar from me, and give 20 cents to my church, you have still robbed me of 80 cents!!
I didn’t say that.
But I guess you’re now officially admitting that you supported at least some of the stimulus?
Or you’re just pounding at the keyboard and going with whatever words come out?
….that you forgot most Americans received a tax cut?
While Tipton, indeed and acknowledged, no longer has a direct interest in Triad, it’s still pretty hypocritical of him.
Oh, wait, Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.
Freeing up wealth instead of taxing it does more to boost the economy than tax cuts for “the poor,” because “the rich” have money to invest and spend — ultimately benefiting the poor, too. This is why people who understand Economics 101 vote Republican.
“The Rich” don’t invest or spend money from tax cuts. They send it off shore or just use it to make more paper wealth. Do you honestly think that Bill Gates will spend more money by getting another, oh, million centavos via a tax break?
OTOH, what do you think a poor person does when they have a few extra dollars in their pocket? They spend it. Now. THAT actually makes jobs.
This is why people who understand Economics 101 and PhD level economics vote Democratic. OTOH, ignorant ideological fools obey their puppeteers.
OK this isn’t so bad but combine it w/ what you find in Tipton’s FEC report in terms of PAC donors: big oil, big tobacco, big banking, and John Boenher himself. Then throw in a HORRIBLE campaign – negative, defensive, inarticulate, hostile – combined w/ a “staff” of supporters who are just plain mean…. and we really, really need to keep Tipton as far away from DC as possible.
Sounds like the current so-called leadership of the Mesa County Republicans.