Today, Jolt was on the scene at a candidate forum in Sultan, WA in Snohomish County, where we picked two losers out of the crowd: One for bad manners, and the other for giving us a bogus answer.
Loser: Republican 2nd District Congressional Candidate John Koster
The Emily Post in me is screaming that I need to tear off my elbow-length fancy gloves and punch Koster in the face.
His campaign schedule posted on his website said that he would be at the Sultan Community Hall for this candidate forum at 11:30 a.m. He finally showed half an hour late—after the thing actually started at noon—spoke for five or ten minutes in boiler plate sound bites about small business and the economy, took one question from the audience (not my question—would he support the bill the Democrats just passed to give $30 billion to small businesses) and left, citing another appointment.
(The question he was asked, by the way, was about how he would pay for veteran health care. He stuck to a generic answer about supporting the troops.)
His opponent, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-2, Northwest Washington) was there the whole time (along with the 39th District state house candidates) taking notes and addressing questions from the crowd of 40 folks who showed up for a debate on the issues.
Loser: State Rep. Dan Kristiansen (R-WA 39)
PubliCola has reported a ton on the budget deficit and the cuts that have been made in order to balance the budget. So when the Republican legislative candidates kept hammering on the new taxes (which, Josh explained, were roughly 8.5 percent of the budget fix), I asked them if they thought $5 billion in cuts was insufficient.
Kristiansen didn’t buy my premise. He said of the $5 billion in new cuts, most of that was cut from proposed spending, not actual expenses. “Most of that was new spending that hadn’t even been initiated,” Kristiansen said.
So we checked out his story with Glenn Kuper, Communications Director for the Office of Financial Management. His response? Kristiansen is twisting the facts:
“A good example would be in higher education. In the original 09-11 budget, we cut higher ed by $557 million. That means we took a $557 million reduction from the amount needed to continue the current level of programs and activities. I think it is accurate to call it a “cut” when the spending you provide buys less than it did the year before. The result is that you can’t provide the same level of service.”
