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 Attacks Himself For Not Supporting, Then Supporting, Then Opposing Repatriation Tax Relief

Bob Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams is not always known for the precision of his quotable quips. But sometimes, like yesterday, he delivered a blow square to Boulder liberal Mark Udall's chin. He couldn't have done it so effectively, though, without the help of Udall's big mouth and voting record.

As observed by reporter Mike Saccone in his Political Notebook, Wadhams called out Udall for an attack that the Democratic candidate might as well have delivered to himself.

At issue is the repatriation income tax levied on companies that bring their operations back onto United States soil. Mark Udall went after Bob Schaffer for his support of temporarily reducing the repatriation tax.

Then Saccone notes:

Turning the tables on Udall, Schaffer and his campaign quickly pointed out that Udall voted in favor of a 2004 bill to lower the repatriation tax during the 2005 tax year. (Udall voted against the bill in June and for it in October.)

And finally:

Never one to let this sort of faux pas slip, Schaffer’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, wrote in a statement: “While trying to shoot down Bob Schaffer, Boulder Liberal Mark Udall turned the gun on himself in a blazing act of hypocrisy and contradiction.”

Pow. Right in the kisser.