The 7th District congressional candidates clashed Monday over tax and immigration policies and over who was a stronger supporter of the FasTracks light-rail system.
The forum, hosted by the Colorado Contractors Association, wasn’t a debate, but it was one of the first joint appearances by the candidates in the closely contested race.
The Democratic candidate, former state Sen. Ed Perlmutter, said he thinks a guest-worker program is necessary so contractors will have the workforce they need. He added that he also thinks illegal immigrants who want to learn English, pay taxes and haven’t committed a crime should be allowed a path to citizenship.
The Republican, Rick O’Donnell, the former head of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, said guest-worker programs had failed in Europe.
“Here’s what happened,” O’Donnell said. “You brought people in as guests, and because they were coming for five, seven, 10 years, they didn’t assimilate, but lo and behold, when their permit expired, they didn’t want to go home.”
O’Donnell said those working here illegally who have followed all other laws should be deported to their country, where they would be allowed to seek U.S. citizenship legally.
Perlmutter also said he thinks at least some of President Bush’s tax cuts should be rolled back while lightening the tax load further on those in the middle class.
“I think a lot of the tax cuts in the face of the demands that this country puts on all of us and our system, whether it’s roads or hospitals or schools, to do those tax cuts and prosecute a war turns our country upside down,” Perlmutter said.
O’Donnell, though, said the federal government has sufficient revenues. He also said he would like to scrap the federal income-tax code and force Congress to come up with a new tax system in five years.
Perlmutter questioned O’Donnell’s commitment to the $4.7 billion FasTracks light-rail system since O’Donnell’s former boss, Gov. Bill Owens, had opposed FasTracks.
Perlmutter also said O’Donnell was “ambivalent at best” on Referendums C and D and was vacationing in Europe during the last month of the vote for Referendums C and D.
Referendum C, approved last year by voters, allows the state to keep an estimated $4.9 billion in tax refunds over five years. Referendum D, which was defeated, would have allowed $1.2 billion in bonds for transportation.
O’Donnell told the association he supported FasTracks.
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com.
