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July 23, 2010 08:41 PM UTC

Don't Lie About the Fact-Checker's Facts

  • 37 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

A brief exchange at the end of yesterday’s debate between GOP candidates Jane Norton and Ken Buck, moderated by 9NEWS’ Adam Schrager, bears further examination.

In the clip above, Norton repeats her claim that she cut “budgets under her control” in state government–both as Lieutenant Governor and as head of the state Department of Public Health and Environment, while Buck’s budgets at the Weld County DA’s office increased “by 40 percent.” Norton then cites Schrager’s 9NEWS Truth Test of her ad to back this claim up.

Buck responds quite calmly that the Truth Test actually shows the attack on him is misleading, and her claim of budget cutting is false–the truth is that Norton has been called out on numerous occasions by major media for this false representation of her budget record, including the Truth Test she brazenly mischaracterizes in front of its author:

QUOTE: Here’s the truth. In state government, I cut budgets.

TRUTH: This isn’t true and here’s why. [Pols emphasis]

The reality of how Colorado’s government is set up is that the only individual who can literally “cut budgets” is the governor and the only way the state’s chief executive can do that is through a gubernatorial veto or through line-item veto power. Spending overall is determined by state lawmakers at the state legislature. They are the ones who approve budgets, according to Colorado State University Political Science Professor John Straayer, who has written the definitive book on Colorado’s state government, “The Colorado General Assembly.” (University Press, 1990, 2000)

Now, the process can and often does start with department heads. Norton is referring to the time when she ran the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) from 1999-2003. The department’s budget is comprised of three separate pools of money (general fund, cash funds, and federal funds) that lead to a total dollar amount…

…Her critics, including the online grassroots organization ProgressNow, say she is using fuzzy math.

“Norton’s budget at the Dept. of Health actually grew while she was the director,” wrote Bobby Clark, the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, in an e-mail to 9NEWS. “Her general fund money may have gone down some, but that was only a small part of her budget. And, in any case, her ‘spending’ did not go down even if some of her funding did. She’s being disingenuous at the least about whether she was shrinking her government department.”

…QUOTE: Ken Buck’s office. His spending skyrocketed by 40 percent.

TRUTH: Technically this appears to be false…

And there’s another problem. If you head to Norton’s campaign website, you’ll find this in her bio:

In other words, Norton is asserting she only “had control” over the General Fund in order to claim plausibly that she “cut her budget”–which opens the door to her attack on Buck–while she’s simultaneously bragging how she managed the larger total budget where that boosts her resume. This total budget, as 9NEWS’ Schrager and every other reporter who has examined the issue has found, in truth went up under her leadership along with the total actual spending for the department. Even better, the $280 million figure she cites represents the largest budget of Norton’s tenure as CDPHE director in 2001-02. It’s one of the most audacious cases of “trying to have it both ways” since “Both Ways Bob” Beauprez made the expression ubiquitous.

If anything, we think that Buck was far too dispassionate in refuting Norton’s bogus claims. Norton’s campaign has proven better at getting these kinds of misleading statements out into discussion than Buck has been at disproving them. This was a golden opportunity for Buck to smash Norton’s credibility in an incontrovertible way–we would have driven it home with more feeling.

Of course, Buck’s in the lead, so maybe he thinks a calm debunking is all that’s needed?

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37 thoughts on “Don’t Lie About the Fact-Checker’s Facts”

          1. When you’re a socialist progressive, it is important to have someone think for you, tell you when to get a medical checkup, tell you what to eat, what car to drive, and tax you to death until you scream, “What have I been thinking all these years?”

              1. You must be referring to the instances where SEIU goons intentionally misspell signs and then try to blend in at conservative rallies?

                Right?

                2. In-group/out-group rationalizations:

                  Anything good attributed to the in-group is due to its virtues, anything bad to luck or the out-group’s subterfuge. Anything good attributed to the out-group is by luck (see, the turn around in the rate of change in unemployment following the stimulus being due to “it had to bottom out sometime”) or subterfuge, anything bad to their own defects.

                  Hey, Hiking, how does it feel to be a caricature straight from the pages of an intro to psych textbook?

            2. in order to blend in unless there were plenty of examples to follow?

              Was Mark Williams a plant also?

              If the Tea Party is actually worried about a group “infiltrating” and making them look bad they should worry less about SEIU and worry more about David Duke and Stormfront who have come right out and said they are encouraging their followers/members/psychopaths to join the “movement”.

        2. Well, all Republicans are jitzlingers! And just as soon as I succeed in convincing everyone who disagrees with Republican ideology that “jitzlinger” means something really, really awful (in the same league as human sacrifice, cannibalism, and karaoke), we’re going to forego all rational discourse, ignore all knowledge and analysis, and simply throw the word “jitzlinger” around any time we feel like reaffirming our own blind ideology! And then we’ll change our party’s name to “Republican.”

        3. Funny how the US is the only country in the world where progressive (desiring to move one’s country forward) and socialist (feeling that government does indeed have responsibilities to the citizens who provide it with power) are insults.

    2. Buck has lied over and over about the 5,000 tax returns he grabbed illegally from a Hispanic tax preparer, saying he only took 1,300. He lied about the US Attorney case.  37 criminal indictments plead down to one misdemeanor all because Buck gave the defense critical information that destroyed the case. He was fired and sent to ethics classes, but he should have been disbarred. Buck supported Ref C, but lies and says he did not.  Buck says he is pro life, when he is really pro choice. Buck insults women with his high heel comment. Buck grew his office by 40%.  Fighting the illegal tax return grab cost the county $300,000. There is an EEOC file out there with charges of sexual harassment. Buck has been a government lawyer, funded with tax dollars, in every job he has held. Everything about Buck is a lie and a facade!  

      Jane Norton is the true conservative with integrity. She does not and has not lied. She has her record that proves her conservative record. Buck supporters attacking her are only helping her support go up. Keep it up!  

      1. become a problem with Republican white people?

        Are you trying to make Buck a hero?  Because what he did is not exactly a shortcoming among the people he needs to vote for him.

        1. Trying to paint “white” repubs as bigots shows you have no intelligent argument. Which, I might add you prove regularly on here and does not come as a surprise.  Us white repubs also believe the Black Panthers should have been indicted for voter intimidation.  But you on the other hand condone the behavior because they were black. What a joke you are.

          1. I think what he was saying was, and Ralphie please correct me if I’m off, but what he was saying was that the white R’s that Buck needs to win aren’t going to be persuaded one way or another about the raid on that tax preparer’s office.

            Now that career civil servant. politician, gubmnt employee, well that may carry some negatives.

            Oh- and if the New Black Panthers should have been prosecuted- why did the Bush administration drop the criminal case?

          1. Damn CIA — providing bad intelligence that Cheney cooked.  Damn Saddam — for not having the WMDs Dubbya claimed he had.

            An obvious conspiracy just to make Bush look bad and bring down his agenda.

      2. that all that matters. (to her and die hard republicans)

        I swear republicans would vote for a mass murderer if they were running as a republican.

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