Watchdog council praises GOP pair

Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 16, 2006 at midnight

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Republican candidates Bob Beauprez and Rick O'Donnell accepted the endorsement Tuesday of a Washington-based organization that rails against government waste and immediatedly took heat from their opponents, who called the event hypocritical.

Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, met with the candidates at the Colorado Auto Dealer Association to praise them as the best people to carry out the political action committee's stated goal of "eliminating waste, fraud and abuse at all levels of the federal government."

Beauprez, who is running for governor and trying to hand off his 7th Congressional District seat to O'Donnell, accepted an award for his voting record in Congress. He then took aim at his opponent, Democrat Bill Ritter, who supported Referendum C, which allowed state government to keep taxes in excess of the refunds required by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

"Bill Ritter thinks government is the answer," Beauprez said. "I look around and think government is typically the problem."

Ritter campaign manager Gregory Kolomitz called the award ironic. He pointed to a piece Beauprez mailed recently at taxpayer expense inviting 7th District voters to meetings on immigration as an example of how Beauprez has wasted tax dollars for political gain.

"That is an abuse of the taxpayer's money right there, and he gets an award for that? That's bogus, both ways," Kolomitz said.

At the news conference, O'Donnell also lit into his opponent, Democrat Ed Perlmutter, for supporting an end to Bush administration tax cuts.

O'Donnell pointed to a U.S. Treasury estimate that repealing all of the Bush tax cuts would amount to an increase of $2,092 of taxes annually for a family of four earning $50,000 per year.

Perlmutter's campaign countered by citing a recent report by the congressional budget office showing that under the Bush administration, the tax burden had shifted from the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans onto the middle class.

"This is another right-wing group that goes around the country only endorsing Republicans and tries to hide the fact that this is the most fiscally irresponsible government we've had in decades, driving us more than $9 trillion in debt," said Scott Chase, Perlmutter campaign spokesman.

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