The candidates in two major Colorado races tried Tuesday to paint their opponents as fiscally irresponsible.
As he picked up the endorsement of a Washington-based fiscal watchdog group, 7th Congressional District Republican candidate Rick O’Donnell criticized Democratic opponent Ed Perlmutter for opposing President Bush’s tax cuts.
O’Donnell said a U.S. Treasury study found that repealing all of the Bush tax cuts would cost a family making $50,000 a year an extra $2,000 in taxes.
Perlmutter spokesman Scott Chase said Perlmutter supports tax cuts for the middle class but believes Bush’s policies have helped the “wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.”
Chase pointed to a study by the Congressional Budget Office that found Bush’s tax cuts had shifted more of the federal tax burden to the middle class.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste Political Action Committee also endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez, who criticized Democratic opponent Bill Ritter for supporting Referendum C, which let state government keep an estimated $4.9 billion in tax refunds over five years.
The Ritter campaign’s spokesman, Evan Dreyer, said Beauprez was being hypocritical on the tax issue because he sent out a mailer promoting a forum dealing with immigration at taxpayer expense.
“He gets this endorsement, but on the other end he spends tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to mail campaign literature from his congressional office,” Dreyer said.
Beauprez’s campaign spokesman John Marshall said the mailing was not campaign-related and that the forum was to discuss an important issue.
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-820-1747 or cosher@ denverpost.com.
