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.

Mark Udall Can't Even Get Populist Rhetoric on Gasoline Prices Straight

It's not just Taylor West. No matter who his spokesperson is, Mark Udall can demagogue the energy issue, but he has a problem doing it coherently. From yesterday's Aspen Times:

Udall called a news conference to tell voters high gasoline prices aren't going away and drivers need to be more fuel efficient. [emphasis added]

No surprise there. Despite all the populist rhetoric to the contrary, we know that Mark Udall and Nancy Pelosi - beholden to a radical environmentalist agenda - have no interest in lowering gas prices. They would rather dictate the way you live. And that doesn't even include Udall and the Democrats' love for the "windfall profits tax" on oil companies, which would only end up further raising the price at the pump.

All of which makes this statement in the same Aspen Times article perfectly hollow:

"While Mark Udall is working to lower gas prices, Bob Schaffer was taking close to $400,000 a year from the oil and gas industry he worked for. Now we know why gas prices are so high," said Udall's campaign spokeswoman, Tara Trujillo.

At a conference in which Mark Udall tells people to get used to higher gas prices, his spokesperson makes a deceptive statement that Udall is "working to lower gas prices."

Mark Udall will continue repeating nonsense like this on the presumption that enough Coloradans are idiots and will lap it all up. Yes, Tara, Bob Schaffer made a six-figure salary working to develop many different kinds of energy (including oil, including renewable sources), and that has raised the price of gasoline? Clearly, Udall is operating the typical Democrat strategy of promoting and feeding off rampant economic illiteracy.

Meanwhile, Mark Udall goes on advocating policies (e.g., blocking domestic energy exploration) that actually work to raise gasoline prices. To distract voters from this fact, expect his campaign to continue dishing out the incoherent populist nonsense.