Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Denver Reporters Catch Mark Udall in a Self-Damaging U-Turn on Taxes

Better late than never, I say. Last Friday we brought attention to Mark Udall's hypocritical attacks against Bob Schaffer on the repatriation tax issue.

Today both the major Denver dailies have caught on. The Rocky Mountain News notes that Mark Udall not only supported a 2004 bill that contained the same corporate tax cut provision for which he criticized Bob Schaffer, but also gave a speech on the House floor praising the idea:
In a floor speech before the final vote, Udall said the bill was flawed and filled with unnecessary provisions, according to the Congressional Record.

But he also said, "I will vote for it because it includes provisions to encourage American corporations doing business abroad to repatriate their overseas earnings for investment here at home. This has great potential to stimulate investment in new plants and equipment as well as in the research and development that support innovation, job creation and prosperity."
Meanwhile, the Denver Post confronted the Udall campaign with the facts, forcing his spokesperson to admit the falsehood and recant:
His spokeswoman, Tara Trujillo, said last week that Udall had voted to strip that proposal out of the bill, but that turned out to be wrong.

The campaign is now admitting the mistake, but only after Schaffer's campaign manager pointed to Udall's own floor statement on the bill in which he praised the tax-holiday provision.
Mark Udall has to be careful. Sometimes when he makes his infamous U-turns, he ends up crashing his own campaign bus.

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