March 24, 2011 06:34 PM UTC

Scott Tipton Giveth, and Taketh Away

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• by: Colorado Pols

Two recent stories about freshman Rep. Scott Tipton, considered the #1 takeout opportunity for Colorado Democrats in the upcoming 2012 elections, help summarize his looming problem. The first, last week, is a laughably fluffy piece in the Durango Herald, authored by an intern, about Tipton’s proposal to slash corporate and capital gains tax rates to 10%:

Rep. Scott Tipton is pushing forward on his campaign promise to turn the economy around by introducing legislation on Tuesday that would cut the federal corporate income tax rate to 10 percent from 35 percent, a rate that is among the highest in the developed world.

Tipton, R-Cortez, said the bill – which would also lower capital-gains and dividends taxes to 10 percent – would attract business investment in the United States and spur job creation.

“In order to get this economy moving, we have to get Americans back to work,” he said in a phone interview. “We’ve been driving American jobs, American opportunities, off of our shores.”

The story is “backed” by anecdotes about historic corporate tax cuts spurring revenue growth, which isn’t itself a false statement–but Tipton’s proposal would slash these rates to a far greater extent than the historical examples cited, arguably shooting right past the potential positives of corporate tax relief and into unsustainable, irresponsible, full-on giveaway territory.

Which brings us to Tipton’s other problem, reported by Grand Junction’s KJCT-TV this week:

Cutting the budget at a national level could have an effect locally for some volunteer organizations. When the U.S. House voted to approve budget cuts, they put these nationwide programs in jeopardy.

Locally, the Foster Grandparent program, Senior Companion program, and the Retired an[d] Senior Volunteer program (RSVP) are at risk of being completely eliminated. The move could fire 450,000 volunteers and force senior citizens with medical problems to spend thousands of dollars to continue the care…

U.S. Representative Scott Tipton voted in favor of the cuts. His office told us that programs are being trimmed everywhere and that it is time to get serious. Unfortunately, he says, that means we’ll have to cut programs that a lot of people want to keep.

“The unfortunate reality of the situation is that we have to make some tough cuts if we are going to start to dig ourselves out of a $1.5 trillion deficit and $14.3 trillion in debt,” Tipton said in a statement to KJCT News 8.

In the first story, Scott Tipton wants to slash corporate taxes with the stated hope that doing so will increase revenue sometime in the future–based on examples that don’t speak to this much more radical proposal. In the other story, Tipton says it’s time to “get serious” about cutting senior programs, which would force “senior citizens with medical problems to spend thousands of dollars to continue the care.” Are those seniors supposed to wait for all that mythical new revenue to come pouring in? Perhaps some of them will die first and help “dig us out?”

Folks, if Democrats can’t turn these two narratives into one heartless corporate stooge who no responsible voter would support, they don’t know how to message anything…