August 07, 2012 05:39 PM UTC

Pay No Attention To Our Glaring Contradiction

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• by: Colorado Pols

Some bang-up reporting from FOX 31’s Eli Stokols yesterday:

In Denver Monday, the Romney campaign held a “Strengthening our Middle Class” event at the Rio Grande Company that featured Colorado Congressman Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, and Sen. John Thune, R-South Dakota, whose name had been mentioned as a potential running mate…

Gardner and Thune agree on Romney, who they argued would be able to fix the country’s still sputtering economy.

But they also agree on something else – the need to extend the wind energy Production Tax Credit, which Romney said last week he opposes…

“I think Gov. Romney is right to say that the government should not be in the position of picking winners and losers,” Thune told FOX31 Denver. “We need to look at what we can do to phase out federal support.”

When reminded that the CEO of Vestas has stated that Congress’s failure to extend the wind PTC would likely force him to lay off roughly 1,000 Colorado employees, Thune acknowledged that the tax credit has supported jobs here and in his home state.

“Colorado benefits from wind, South Dakota benefits from wind,” Thune said. [Pols emphasis] “I’ve supported the wind energy tax credit because it’s been good in terms of my state’s economy and some of the jobs that come with it.”

Stokols points to a letter signed by Sen. John Thune this past February with other Senators strongly in favor of renewal of the wind production tax credit. As we’ve discussed, renewal of this tax credit enjoys near-unanimous bipartisan support from Colorado’s congressional delegation. The reason is simple: thousands of real, high-paying Colorado jobs, and all of the secondary and tertiary economic growth that comes along with them, are directly on the line.

“The future of the American wind industry requires a stable tax environment in which to operate,” the letter began.

But in the end, this weak, contradictory, and above all inconclusive nonanswer is all you’ll get from Sen. Thune or Colorado Republicans who support both Romney and the wind power tax credit. GOP CD-7 candidate Joe Coors isn’t foolish enough to come out against this as a candidate in the district which includes the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), but he still appeared with Romney at his rally at Jefferson County Fairgrounds.

In all of these cases, including Reps. Scott Tipton, Mike Coffman, and Cory Gardner, they’ll say they support Romney’s “principle” on some hypothetical level, just not where it would kill thousands of jobs in their home states. And they would like change the subject.

To, you know, jobs!

If it looks to you like they’ve got a major political problem here, folks, it’s because they do.