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September 27, 2005 08:00 AM UTC

Caldara C&D Campaign's New Best Friend

  • 48 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute is turning out to be one of the best things that could have happened to the Referenda C&D campaign. A few weeks ago it was former Senate President John Andrews shooting the campaign in the foot, but Caldara seems intent on catching up. Two weeks ago he admitted that the $5,000 expense for “dildo art” that he trumps as wasteful government spending was, um, not true, and yesterday he apparently got caught again making up figures. From the Rocky Mountain News:

Referendum C opponent Jon Caldara says the state’s $100,000 in “cold, hard cash” to the Red Robin restaurant chain is “corporate welfare” and another example of wasteful government spending.

But Red Robin “hasn’t received a penny of cold, hard cash” from the state, countered Brian Vogt, director of economic development for Colorado. And the chain won’t receive any tax dollars unless it creates high-paying, long-term jobs that generate tax revenue, he said.

Vogt denounced a report by the Independence Institute, a think tank that Caldara heads, that purports to show wasteful government spending. The report lists various companies awarded tax incentives in the name of economic development.

Vogt said the authors “manipulated” data to “spin” their argument that Referendum C should be defeated on Nov. 1. In the process, he said, they made mistakes about incentives awarded to Red Robin and other companies. “The lack of respect they show to taxpayers is palpable,” Vogt said Monday. “It’s noxious. It’s over the top.”

The comment left Caldara speechless – but only for a moment.

“We’re suggesting you shouldn’t give tax dollars to large corporations and we’re disrespectful of taxpayers?” Caldara said.

He conceded that the report might have some errors. But, he said, the premise of the report is still accurate: The state pledged tax incentives to companies at the same time it was claiming to be in a budget crisis.

The YES on C&D Campaign would be smart to start using Caldara’s financial fudging against the NO campaign in advertisements. Once the seed of doubt on some of these figures gets planted in the mind of the voters, they’ll be reluctant to believe any claims about wasteful spending.

Caldara is really making silly mistakes here, because there are enough examples of government spending he could probably point to that, you know, actually exist. There is a lot of money being spent on both sides of this campaign — did Caldara think nobody would catch him?

The NO on C&D Campaign came out of the gate stronger last spring, but Caldara seems intent on driving it right into the ground with unnecessary mistakes.

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48 thoughts on “Caldara C&D Campaign’s New Best Friend”

  1. What is even better to know is that tax exempt  Independence Institute oddly enough has the same tax status as the Red Cross.  I am sure they are doing similiar work.

    Why give money to a real charity when Republicans would rather help Caldara spread the lies?

    Screw the people in impacted by the hurricanes, the Independence Institute needs our help.

  3. “If the facts don’t support your position, make something up!”  Modus operendi for Conservative Republicans…

    That is how we ended up in Iraq, and that is how the No on C & D folks are trying to defeat these worthwhile measures!

  5. I can’t believe that Caldera hasn’t figured out that Atlas Shrugged was a novel.  As soon as someone can point to a functioning libertarian state, I’ll risk my new deal democracy.  People who hate government shouldn’t be involved in making policy or running government.  I don’t want anarchists to make policy, and I can’t see the any practical difference between anarchy and a libertarian “state” or a Republican cleptocracy.

    “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Grover Norquist

    I like Colorado, and I don’t want to start having a state government as Republican/Libertarian as say Alabama’s.  Toyota wouldn’t put their new plant in Alabama because they would have had to use pictographs to train new employees.  We have no national healthcare system, so that Toyota did the math and went to Canada. Even with millions in corporate welfare offered by Alabama, Toyota went to Canada. This is Colorado?s future if Caldera and his ilk win the fight on government, taxation, and services.  It?s a vision that will lead to poverty, illiteracy, and eventually ruin.  Government can’t solve every problem, but the government we have had up until recently solved quite a few.  Piss poor infrastructure, public education, and government services will drive away business and hurt everyone in Colorado.

  6. Good job Caldera/Norquist/Andrews.  Take us back in that whacky liberterian time machine to before John Locke’s “social contract” – that’s where the future is!  Let each man be an island to himself – no hospitals, no roads, no jails, no common defense, no schools.  We can go back to beating each other over the heads with clubs!  Yes, indeed, that’s where the future is!

  8. Kevin,

    I think the libertarian state is right next to the socialist one on the garbage heap.  The socialist practices that are taking over American capitalism will undoubtedly lead to our downfall.

    Socialist nations are slowly becoming more capitalist because they are now realists that understand how economies work.  Capitalist nations are slowly becoming more socialist because they are full of idealists who think they can use government to solve all the country’s woes.  The prime example you use is Canada?s health care system, which is full of failure.  People die because they have been waiting on treatment for so long.

    Also, your logic does not hold true, The United States did not have hardly any social programs until the 1940’s under FDR, so why didn’t the U.S. fail before the 1940’s?  If we follow your logic the American experiment should have failed a hundred years ago because we didn’t have any of the social programs that you tout.  Please explain the flaw.

    By the way the word is kleptocracy, not “cleptocracy”, and perfect examples of it are the Chicago Mayor Daley’s Office, the Huey Long administration, and Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall.

  9. First, the name is Kenevan. 

    The United States was a second tier player until FDR and the new deal.  I was talking about economic growth and right now we are losing jobs because of our incrediably ineffecient and expensive health care system.  Overall health is better in every industalized country with socialized medicine.  We have the cutting edge technology, but that is all we can brag about in the U.S. regarding our health care.  People die in line in Canada and we die uninsured at home in larger numbers.  I’d rather have Canada’s health care problems.

    Kleptocrat vs. cleptocrat.  Who gives two shits?

  10. Kenevan,

    Government didn’t make this country great. 

    We had unprecedented growth after the Civil War without all of your wonderful government programs.  The U.S. was a libertarian country until FDR packed the SCOTUS.

    Of course we weren’t a first-tier country prior to our entering WWII, we were only 140 years old.  After WWII, Europe was decimated. We weren’t.  Your reasoning is specious at best. 

    Here’s a rather exhaustive comparison of countries that have nationalized health care (pdf).  If this doesn’t shut your yap, unfortunately, nothing will.

    That said, Caldera should have just admitted his mistake.  Nobody hates taxes more than me, but I would never cook numbers to back an argument.  I don’t need to.  Neither does Caldera.

  11. BTW, since we are on the subject of FDR: he is the one who militarized the U.S., he is the one who started the Cold War, he more than anybody else is the reason we are currently hated by lesser countries, he is the reason social spending will bankrupt this country. 

    FDR is a communist prick who should have been tried and executed for making U.S. citizens into government slaves.

  12. mentalmasturbator,

    Seems your have been spending a little too much time alone in your room and you can barely see straight.

    FDR put our country back on the map as major super power after Republican drove it into the great depression.  Read any paper on the great depression and some of the great capitalistic theories like laissez-faire are what caused it to begin with.

    I don’t think a socialistic or libertarian state is ideal.  Having a successful country is all about balance.  Do you think we have balance right now in our current economic policy where Republicans shovel all our debt onto the next generation paid for via communist China?  Wonder how you justify so many “patriotic” capitalistic corporations selling out American jobs to communist China.

    We need to stop the spend and barrow Republicans from selling our children?s future to communist China.  It is time we held those responsible that continue to spend money we do not have.  At least FDR could balance a budget during a World War no less.

  13. Well, it is getting really clear monkeys are running the show for the “vote no” campain.  Yesterday some of them vandalized my “vote yes” sign in front of my house!  They cut it in pieces with a knife.  Amazing… back to the ice age?  I put up a new sign this morning, and guess what?  This time they spray painted “NO” on the “vote yes” sign!

    VOTE yes on c and d.

  14. Plumber,
    We actually had a depression after the Civil war and then the rise of the robber barons.  Teddy busted the trusts and everything was fine until the lazy fair Republicans ran us into the ground during the 20s.

    Conservatives have been on the wrong side of every issue in our history.  Support the King, keep the slaves, deny women the vote, arm Hitler, deny eual rights, fuck labor, et al.  The name of the party has changed, but conservatives are always wrong.

  15. Government is what makes us great.  Our constitution, our laws and our history dfine us, and anyone who stands against our constitution and our laws is a traitor.

  16. I guess you are calling Martin Luther King a traitor, windy one.  He sure went up against a lot of our laws.  But, like Seward, he recognized that there is sometimes a higher law.  Our government is not what makes us great.  The American people are what make our government great.  And don’t argue with plumber.  He’s brain damaged from reading John Galt’s 100-page speech in Atlas Burped 452 times.

  17. Kenevan,

    Your post shows your ignorance.  I would like you to name me a specific report, done by a credible organization, that proves your theory that socialist medicine is better than the U.S. system.  If you are going to make the case you better have the facts to back it up. 

    Last time I checked Kings, Queens, Preisdents, and all manner of people come to the United States for treatment at the Mayo and Cleveland Clinics or John Hopkins each year.  If Canada is so great why are they not going there?

    Looking at your later post, I realize that you are ignorant.  If you read any history book you will find that it was in fact the Republicnas who were abolitionists and helped free the slaves, supported civil rights, supported womans sufferage, not the Democrats.  Just so you know Labor voted Repubican also, until they labor movement went crazy. 

    By the way, Kenevan vs. Kevin?  Who gives two sh*ts?

  18. We already have socialized medicine in this country!

    According to most state laws, hospital emergency rooms face severe fines and penalties if they turn away someone in a medical crisis who doesn’t have insurance or cash.

    For example, my stomach ulcer which could have been treated at a fraction of the cost and pain three weeks ago by a primary care physician, is now causing me extreme nausea and severe anal bleeding. 

    I’m gonna go dial 911 — the taxpayers and people with insurance will get to pick up the huge cost of this operation.

    America should provide free standard care to everyone, let the rich buy the extra goodies.  That would be cheaper and more humane than what we’re doing now . . .

    . . . unless you think that emergency rooms should just let me bleed to death in the street.

    Personally, I think most people know that an ounce of prevention is usually worth a pound of cure!

  20. Marshall:

    “We need to stop the spend and barrow Republicans…”

    Isn’t that exactly what the proponents of your beloved C & D are doing?  Ref. D borrows and forces our kids to pay the bill, a charge you are so fond of leveling at the “Vote No” crowd.

  21. Socialism,

    So let me get this straight, I have a job that provides me with health care and if I go to the hospital I have to pay my co-pay to get service.  You, on the other hand, have done no pre-planning for your health care needs and therefore have no health care coverage.  When you go to the hospital you expect the taxpayers of Colorado or the hospital to foot the bill and take care of you. 

    I fail to understand where in the U.S. Constitution that you should have a right to that kind of service.  Sure it is sad that you are hurt, but if health care was such an important part of our country then the Founding Fathers would have put universal health care into the constitution.

  22. Jonathon,
    Conservatives have consistently been on the wrong side of American history.  Sometimes those conservatives were Republicans, sometimes they were Dixiecrats, and sometimes they were loyal to the King.  Today, conservatives are Republicans, and they are wrong, again. 

    As far as health care outcomes, we rank 12th worldwide behind eleven other countries all of which have socialized medicine.  Hit the WHO website.  You might learn something.  I’m not going to do your reading for you.

    Remember, we’re all in this together.  You might want to be a self sufficient ubernmensch, but I prefer a to live in the greatest country on earth.

    You seem you.  Why aren’t you fighting in Iraq?  Their trying to set up a neo-con fantasy state.  You should led a helping hand.

  23. Kenevan,

    Please, don’t try to dump the sins of the Democrat party onto the Republicans by equating the Democrats of the South with conservative Republicanism.  You really need some history lessons.

    As for the WHO website, I have been there and it is laughable at best because all the folks who run the WHO support socialized medicine.  Remember, I asked for an unbiased report. 

    Also, when you make statements of fact and do not have the facts to back them up you look bad.  When you are called on the carpet and asked to provide facts from an unbiased source and you refuse, you lose all credibility. 

    Why am I not fighting in Iraq?  I applied twice and was turned down because of a medical condition.  Thanks for asking. 

    By the way, I think you mean ubermensch, not ubernmensch.

  24. Jonathan, I’m not fighting in Iraq because I’m an old man with diabetes who already served in the Vietnam unpleasantness, and a born coward to boot.
    What’s your liberal friend Kenevan’s excuse?

  26. Kenevan,

    And this is what it always boils down to.  Democrats cannot use reason, logic, and solid facts to back up their arguements, so they resort to name calling.

    You lose Kenevan.

  28. Actually Jonathon what it boils down to is I have a low tolerance for bullshit and a shitty temper.  Generalize all ya want, I’ll stick to science, reason, history, and fact.

    I think you’re a little puke with a piss poor understanding of history or what makes this country great.  Why reason with an idiot when you can hurl an insult instead?

    You are anal retentative neocon fascist pig.  Live with it or find enlightenment. It’s your choice. 😉

  29. “YES ON C AND D” … haha… it was ME destroying your idiotic sing in your yard! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Burn baby burn!  VOTE NO IT’S YOUR DOUGH!!

  31. If we lived in a vacuum, then FDR’s foolishness would have no effect on us now.  FDR globalized and militarized us.  FDR negotiated the unholy alliance with Uncle Joe Stalin that created the Cold War (you remember Stalin? he killed about 3 million more people than Hitler).  About that, there is no doubt.  Before him, the U.S. was mostly neutralist, just like the classic liberals.

    He also created a Ponzi Scheme called Social Security that is doomed to fail no matter how much money we dump into it.

    But wait! That’s not all.  The New Deal was a utter failure until FDR got us into war.  Hoover’s “more” laissez-faire approach was actually more effective based on the leading economic indicators.  FDR’s New Deal erased this progress however.

    Eleventh in the world in health care?  That may be the stupidest thing I’ve read today.  Somebody didn’t do their homework, or read my link very thoroughly.  Even if one could “measure” health care in some way that approaches scientific, the U.S. is second to none (despite the fact that we are already socialized).

  32. Well I just definitely have read the stupidest thing this week – Did mentalmasturbator just compare FDR to Stalin and Hitler?  Put the kool-aid down and pick up a history book, Japan got us into WWII and FDR stayed out as long as he could.  I have heard Republicans try to Monday Morning quarterback FDR before about the end of WWII?  What was the alternative to working with Stalin to stop Hitler?  No one had the military will to push the Soviet Union out of Europe plus something else that you forget is we still had Japan to deal with. 

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_2

    FDR did the best job he could, maybe Republicans should worry about get us out of the current mess they have gotten us in Iraq before they start second guessing FDR.  At least FDR could figure out the correct nation to attack.

  33. Kenevan,

    You say that you will stick to “science, reason, history, and fact” but you have proven in your posts that you don’t stick to any of them, especially history. 

    If it makes you feel good to call me names, feel free, because regardless of what you call me you and I both know that you have lost the debate.

  35. Then maybe you want to clarify what you said.  I’ll ask my question again since you seem unable to answer it.

    What was the alternative to working with Stalin to stop Hitler?

    Come on Monday Morning Quarterback…If you think FDR was such a bad president then tell me how you would have done it differently.

    And if you would bother to pick up a history book you would know that FDR did not get us into WWII,  he did everything he could to keep us out of it until Japan attacked us.  At least FDR could figure out the correct nation to attack.

  36. Marshall,

    I find it highly ironic that you are telling others not to Monday Morning Quarterback decisions made by FDR when you, in the same post, do the exact same thing that you are criticizing The Plumber for.

  38. And if you would bother to pick up a history book you would know that FDR did not get us into WWII, he did everything he could to keep us out of it until Japan attacked us.

    I could have sworn that it had more to do with the Monroe Doctrine than it did with him doing “everything he could.”

    You know the doctrine, the one that said we were to stay out of European wars and Europe was to stay away from the Americas.

    MAybe you should pick up an 8th grade history book yourself.

  39. Marshall,

    I personally doubt that Hitler could have held Europe for any appreciable amount of time…regardless of whether we entered the European theatre or not. 

    Besides, WWII could have been avoided had European leaders (read: Neville Chamberlin) heeded warnings about Germany’s military buildup.  Yep Marshall, for some reason, appeasement as policy seems to have very little success.

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