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March 10, 2010 06:40 PM UTC

Wiens, Liberals Pounce on Norton's "I Cut Spending" Claims

  • 32 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Not a good showing for GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton on FOX 31 News last night, folks–excerpts below, and the video feature after the jump:

There is no issue that riles up today’s conservative base like the issue of government spending, perceived to be out of control after last year’s $787 billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and on the verge of a health care reform bill that, if passed, could cost close to $1 trillion over the next decade.

In such a context, it’s no surprise that Republican candidates are talking, on the eve of this fall’s midterm elections, about how Democrats have overspent and how they will, if elected, rein in such expenditures.

It’s also no surprise that Jane Norton, a Republican running for U.S. Senate in Colorado, is already airing television commercials to that effect…

“It’s fashionable right now to talk about being a fiscal conservative and talk about limited government,” said Norton, [Pols emphasis] who, under former Gov. Bill Owens, served as director of Colorado’s Dept. of Public Health and Environment and later as Lieutenant Governor.

“The fact of the matter is I did cut budgets and my general fund was less. The general fund allotment I had when I left the department of Public Health was less when I left than when I started, about $6.4 million less.”

“She didn’t say in her ad that her general fund went down,” said Bobby Clark, executive director of ProgressNow Action, a Denver-based, liberal organizing group.

“She said she cut spending — and it’s just not true. Spending — her department budget went up every year.”

During Norton’s tenure at CDPHE, the department’s overall budget did rise from $226.5 million in fiscal year 1999-2000 to a high of $280 million three years later, before the post- 9/11 recession led to across-the-board cuts and slight drop in the department’s overall 2002-03 budget, which was $269.5 million.

“A budget going up every year doesn’t equate to cutting spending,” Clark said. “Jane Norton saying she cut spending is like Sarah Palin saying she could see Russia from her house. It’s disingenuous and it’s just not true.”

But, in Norton’s view, she only had control over the money her department received from the state…

“Jane is a wonderful person, but not a fiscal conservative,” said former state senator Tom Wiens, who is challenging Norton to be the GOP’s U.S. Senate candidate come fall. “We have to have real fiscal conservatives elected to the U.S. Senate,” he said. “If you’re going to use these numbers from your budget, you have to use the real numbers. You can’t make them up. We can’t have this kind of thinking where you claim to cut your budget and you don’t; and you claim to not raise taxes, and you did.”

In Wiens’s view, Norton’s support for Referendum C in 2006 was, in effect, support for a tax increase…

Particularly interesting here is the fact that Norton is defending herself using a similar approach as Governor Bill Ritter did when then-gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry and others attacked him over budget line items not directly under his control. The biggest difference, of course, is that Democrats don’t highlight “spending cuts” in campaign ads as good things.

But if you’re to accept Norton’s defense, as her campaign no doubt would like you to do, you pretty much have to acknowledge that a whole swath of claims insistently made by Penry and GOP candidates around the state about Democrats in power are meritless. Most likely GOP caucusgoers watching this aren’t going to think so, of course, so it just ends up with Norton looking as duplicitous as they’ve been taught Governor Ritter appears for saying the same thing.

With caucuses just a few days away, this was not the TV news feature Norton was hoping for.

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32 thoughts on “Wiens, Liberals Pounce on Norton’s “I Cut Spending” Claims”

  1. and Ms. Norton’s statements that she cut the general fund budget because that is the part of the budget the executive director controls is nonsense.  In this state, the General Assembly determines the budgets for the executive branch departments, including the general fund portion of each agency budget.

    As Fox 31 News and this thread points out, the budget for the Colorado Department of Public Helath & Environment (CDPHE), increased every year she was executive director from $222 million to $280 million  with one decline the last year she was ED when her budget went down to $269 million, but even looking at it from the point of view of the last year her budget increased by no less than $47 million during her tenure. A 21% increase during her four years. She certainly can’t claim to be a budget cutter.

    The last year she was executive director the CDPHE budget was cut due to the dot.com recession which caused declining state revenues and that year the General Assembly cut all the executive agency budgets.

    The real test here is whether she gave unspent general fund money back to the general fund at the end of each fiscal year.  I don’t know one way or the other but that is the only control she could have exercised over the general fund budget at the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.  Other than remitting unspent general fund monies at the end of the fiscal year, she had no control over here general fund budget.

    Another test to see if she is a budget cutter is whether she ask for a positive or negative supplemental appropriations bill at the beginning of each legislative session when she was ED at CDPHE. Each year the beginning of the legislative session, the legislature runs bills that either appropriate more money to a department (positive supplemental) or take money away from a department (negative supplemental). The question is whether she ever requested a negative supplemental when she was ED of CDPHE. Idon’t have the answer to that question but I’m betting she didn’t.

    Protraying herself as a budget cutter has opened a can of worms she doesn’t need and probably is the result of a poorly thought out initiaitive by her. This is not a good omen for her campaign.

    1. I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at how in depth FOX went on this. Their fact checking was enlightening, particularly when they pointed out that her department’s budget, at one point, ballooned up nearly 60 million dollars. If this is what she calls budget cutting, I’m terrified to see what she considers spending.

      During Norton’s tenure at CDPHE, the department’s overall budget did rise from $226.5 million in fiscal year 1999-2000 to a high of $280 million three years later, before the post- 9/11 recession led to across-the-board cuts and slight drop in the department’s overall 2002-03 budget, which was $269.5 million.

      1. Ms. Norton is having a hard time dealing with the actual numbers. I’m surprised she and her campaign allowed themselves to be put in this position. The objective historical facts show she isn’t telling the truth. She is suffering from self inflicted wounds to her credibility.

  2. Technically, Palin never said she could see Russia from her house.  That was Tina Fey in an SNL skit.

    However, Palin has made many, many other statements that range from bordering on the ridiculous to leaving said border miles in the rear view mirror.

    2. that it was Tina Fey.

      what Sarah Palin said to Charlie Gibson was

      They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from Alaska.

      You’re right that it was different.

  3. “A budget going up every year doesn’t equate to cutting spending,” Bobby Clark said.

    But if the budget doesn’t “go up” as much as it did the year before, groups like PN routinely call it a “cut”.  

      1. I was suggesting, however, that if a Republican votes for a CDPHE budget that doesn’t grow by a percentage that is equal to, or greater than, the previous year’s rate of growth, Progress Now will claim that that legislator, “slashed health care spending for the poor”.

        And that seems to run counter to Mr. Clark’s quote.

        1. While it’s true that to keep spending flat in inflation-adjusted dollars one needs to up the dollar amount to stay even, you didn’t say that. Instead, you had to stretch the truth past the breaking point.

          Kinda like Norton.

          1. and has fallen on her own sword, no matter how you look at it, through her support of ref C and her CDPHE budget.

            There goes another plank in the platform.  Maybe she can talk more about terrorism.  

          2. For years, the Colorado budget would often grow at twice the rate of inflation.  

            Any spending reduction that deviated from the allowed 6% growth was viewed as a cut by the Left.  Even though spending was increasing at a rate higher than inflation.

            2. 2000-2003 CDPHE budget figures do show a radical reduction in year over year outlays for paperclips and office supplies.

              Jane Norton is a fiscal conservative.

              1. I don’t have a dog in the GOP Senate fight.

                I just thought that the quote from PN was counter to their usual philosophy of calling any reduction in the rate of growth, even if growth remains consistent with the rate of inflation, a “cut”.

                1. I just think what Norton is telling is half the story, or even less than that, when the whole story demonstrates something completely different.

  5. …because they’re mostly for show.  But I’d like to congratulate Bobby Clark on being one of the most ignorant dumbasses this side of the Mississippi.  How many times are people going to “quote” Sarah Palin before they realize that the only person who actually said that was Tina Fey?

    That is all.

      2. …”took the initiative in CREATING the internet.”  That’s not claiming to have been the origin of the internet, but rather taking credit for its development.  What a load of crap…

        Sarah Palin was trying to demonstrate that Russia was a close neighbor of Alaska (“You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska”).

        1. that turned the internet from a plaything for academics and defense industry people to something that you and I can use. That was him. That required an act of Congress, and he was the one that made it happen.

          The people credited with inventing the World Wide Web are aware of the importance of Al Gore’s role. Why aren’t you? Is it because you’re full of anger and can’t give a political opponent credit for an accomplishment?

          If it weren’t for Al Gore, the internet wouldn’t be anything remotely like what we know it as. Deny it if it makes you happy, but your denial doesn’t make false things true. It just makes you look dumb.

              1. we can rehash? I hear Dick Cheney was in charge of this company called Halliburton. I’m sure it won’t have any effect on the way he governs though.

              2. …have to acknowledge, at the very least, that using the word “create” was clumsy and self-serving, and that RedGreen is right–no matter what you can or cannot give Al Gore credit for, the internet (as we know it) was inevitable.

                1. Just because it happened doesn’t mean it had to happen. It was inevitable that we’d switch to the metric system, but we still haven’t done it. And where’s my personal rapid transit system?

                  The internet didn’t have to exist as a way for people to buy things or argue politics. It happened because there was a bunch of government funding for it, motivated by people who had some vision early on for what it could be.

                  And there were other projects that were funded similarly, but which ended up not catching on or not fulfilling their promise. Gore deserves some credit for being right about the internet. I think both you and RedGreen are wrong about its inevitability.

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