Search Results for: cory gardner

You’d think the upcoming deadline to extend the U.S. debt ceiling offers the perfect moment for one, just one, congressional Republican from Colorado to pull on his big-boy pants and say something like, “Hey, we created stock market gyrations and induced the first-ever U.S.-credit downgrade when we held up the debt increase in 2011. We caused similar instability last year. Let’s get real, extend the ceiling, and debate budget cuts during the budget process.”

Which is what Democrats and Republicans have done over 100 times since 1940, with little opposition (until 2011). Reagan did it 18 times; G.W. Bush seven.

Instead, it looks like Coffman (here), Gardner (here, here) are readying themselves for a fight that could lead to an economic mini-tizzy if not a large one.

Or maybe not. Can a Colorado Republican step up and be reasonable? Any of them? That’s what editorial writers at The Denver Post and elsewhere should be asking.

In just the latest example of extreme craziness, Gardner used the debt-ceiling debate to raise the specter of the rise of Nazism in America. Here’s what he said on KFTM radio’s Big Morning Show Jan. 14:

Gardner: I think you’re going to see a whale of a fight over the next two months….

Host: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And really, how is this any different than what Germany went through in the 1930s when you had to literally have wheelbarrows full of German Marks in order to even buy a loaf of bread?

Gardner: Well a period of hyper-inflation, of course, we all know what that led to, the instability economically and what that led to. And we see quantitative easing taking place in the United States. We see devaluation of the dollar. We see inflationary pressures and threats and how that’s being dealt with. And yet there is no clear path to address those concerns. This nation faces the real possibility of a debt depression if we don’t get a hold of the financial situation right now.

Listen to Rep. Gardner on KFTM Radio 1-14-2012 raising specter of Nazism in America .

Everyone remembers Gov. Rick Perry’s magnificent “Oops moment,” during the Republican presidential primary, when he suggested cutting three, count ’em, three federal agencies: the 1) Education Department, 2) Commerce Department, and 3) ???????????????.

Who remembers the last one?

It was the Energy Department!

It looks like Rep. Cory Gardner would have been able to get the words “Energy Department” out of  his mouth if he’d been in Rick Perry’s shoes, because our Congressman from the 4th Congressional District has the Energy Department on his own list for possible elimination.

On KFKA radio’s Amy Oliver Show Tuesday, Gardner suggested that the federal Energy Department is “something we ought to look at and see whether or not they are actually justified to be there anyway.”

OLIVER: Give me your thoughts on – and I’m sure you’ve heard-you served with him when you were in Legislature and he was the governor of the state of Colorado, the idea that Governor Bill Ritter is on the short list for Energy Secretary.

GARDNER:  [chuckles] Governor Ritter is a nice guy.  And I’m sure, you know, he is somebody you’d love to have a beer with.  I was never invited, I don’t think, [laughing] to have a beer with him, but if you were I’m sure he’d be a nice guy to have a beer with!   But I don’t think he’s the right person for the Secretary of Energy.  In fact, Energy Department is something we ought to look at and see whether or not they are actually justified to be there anyway.  So, let’s have a conversation about what we can do to consolidate and eliminate some of these spending programs, especially programs that aren’t working because of Solyndras and other wasted program spending.  And I don’t think Bill Ritter is the right one to lead that conversation.

Full transcript and audio here.

Rep. Cory Gardner likes to point his finger at the media when things don’t go his way, blaming Romeny’s loss on “television stations,” and once complaining that the “media” is biased against people like him who allegedly want smaller government.

Reporters have yet to ask Gardner for the evidence supporting his media bashing. They just lie there and let Gardner trash them.

Why not fight back? It would make good content, and it’s the right thing to do.

Gardner provided another opportunity for an entertaining fight with reporters, if journalists are brave enough cast off their chains and step up, this morning in a conversation with Steve Kelley on KNUS’ morning show, Kelley and Company, about the failure of the Republican House to pass full support for the victims of Hurricane Sandy:

KELLEY:  It should be scrutinized.  But it just looks bad.  Doesn’t it?  I mean, — and the way it is being played in the media, unfortunately, [is] Boehner, this mean guy doesn’t — and you guys in the House — don’t care about those Hurricane Sandy victims out there.

GARDNER:  Look, the media is going to criticize the Republicans every time we turn around, because we are not in lock-step with the President.  And they are going to criticize any time they get a chance.  Now, should this have been handled in a different way?  Uh, there’s always going to be speculation about that.  But the bottom line is this:  John Boehner is not a – nor is the House Republican majority going to turn a blind eye on the victims of a horrible natural disaster.

That’s nut-head nutty, isn’t it? The media wants Gardner to be in lock-step with Obama? What’s he talking about?

It would be fun to hear Gardner explain himself, wouldn’t it?

Sometimes KNUS’ Steve Kelley seems embarrassed by his own morning rants and rages against Obama and the nasty Democrats. The other day he asked, “Do you really want to hear a rant from middle-aged white guy?”

Kelley’s current behavior looks different from what you heard during of his 19-year career at KOA, where he at least acted like he didn’t have the answers.

But Kelley’s more level-headed roots return when he conducts interviews, which usually feature straight-forward questions you’d want, but don’t expect, from someone seated behind a microphone.

This morning, for example, during his Kelley and Company show, he asked Rep. Cory Gardner this really good question:

Kelley: Why do you guys [Republicans] seem to be losing the PR battle [on the fiscal cliff]? I mean, it’s so easy to blame a Republican, but it seems to stick to you?

Gardner: Well, you know, it’s tough. We’ve got to do a better job of messaging and explaining to people who are in the middle class, people who are lower income earners, that people who will be affected by this tax increase are people like you, people who are working hard to make ends meet, people who are struggling to pay the mortgage, because their business are going to be hard hit. That’s going to result in lower take home pay because the businesses they work with are suffering and struggling to bear the burden of the tax increases. That’s the bottom line and so the President controls the bully pulpit, regardless of who it is in the White House, whether it is a Democrat or a Republican. They have a tremendous opportunity to shape the outlines of the message.

Listen to audio of Rep. Gardner talking fiscal cliff on Denver radio station KNUS 710 AM on 12-11-12

Kelley was on the right track, but to get to the heart of the GOP’s fiscal-cliff PR/substance problem, Kelley should have contrasted Gardner’s head-spinning response with Obama’s crisp lines on the topic, which he delivered at a rally Monday:

Obama: “We can solve this problem. All Congress needs to do is pass a law that would prevent a tax hike on the first $250,000 of everybody’s income,” he said. “When you put it all together, what you need is a package that keeps taxes where they are for middle class families, we make some tough spending cuts on things that we don’t need, and then we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a slightly higher tax rate.”

In another question, which Kelley didn’t acknowledge actually related to his previous question about the GOP’s PR problem, Kelley asked Gardner whether he’d compromise on a tax increase:

Gardner: “We cannot agree to a tax increase. That is not the solution. That is not going to solve our $16 trillion debt. That’s what I am urging our leaders, Speaker Boehner and others, to make sure they are adhering to…I think he knows that the [Republican] conference does not support a tax increase, that there is no will to increase taxes amongst the Republican Party and the House majority.”

That’s obviously part of the Republican PR problem on the fiscal cliff, but Kelley didn’t get into the fundamentals.