By CHARLES KERR

Lauren Boebert is, I suspect, the least qualified person in our lifetime to have the backing of a major political party to represent the people of Colorados 3rd Congressional District. For which committees in the House of Representatives is she best prepared to further her constituents interests? Agriculture? Veterans Affairs? Education and Labor? Natural Resources? Energy and Commerce? Transportation and Infrastructure?

Colorados 3rd Congressional District needs a representative with broad experience and good judgment, someone who understands the legislative process and is a knowledgeable negotiator. Is Lauren Boebert this person? What qualifies her to be our voice in Congress? That she said Hell, no to Beto ORourkes proposed government buyback of AR-15 and AK-47 semi-automatic weapons? Or her visit to Mount Rushmore to celebrate the Fourth of July with President Trump? Or her invitation to attend Trumps acceptance speech at the White House? Or that she has friends at Fox News? These events position her for reality TV celebrity status, as does wearing a Glock on her hip. But, clearly, these actions are not qualifications for being our representative in Congress.

She claims to be a voice for freedom: freedom from regulation, freedom from taxation, freedom from gun control, freedom from health department regulations, freedom from COVID-19 state restrictions. She walks her talk. At a rodeo in Rifle, without a food license and lacking food safety practices, her food vending service served pork sliders which poisoned people causing severe diarrhea. Failure to pay her taxes has led to eight tax liens against her restaurant. Disorderly conduct and failure to appear in court has led to her arrest and summonses at least four times. Opposing stay-at-home orders from Gov. Jared Polis, Boebert reopened her restaurant and when Garfield County obtained a restraining order to stop her from serving dine-in customers, she moved tables outside. This led to suspension of her restaurant license. Freedom without responsibility is anarchy, and anarchy, from the political right or left, is the antithesis of good government.

Dishonesty also undermines effective government. Lying Lauren was Tiptons response to her ads that asserted that he teamed up with AOC and the Squad to give Boulder a bailout, and that he joined Nancy Pelosi to give amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. To characterize Tiptons votes for H.R.6467 (the coronavirus relief fund for units of government with a population of 500,000 or less) and for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act as a Boulder bailout and amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants respectively is shameful, according to Republican state Sen. Don Coram. Lies and deception is how Sen. Coram characterizes Boeberts misrepresentation of Tiptons voting record. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act and H.R. 6467 were important, bipartisan legislation that would directly benefit West Slope farmers and communities. Boeberts attack ads, based on Tiptons support for this legislation, are more than shameful; they undermine the legislative process that is the basis of effective government which requires bipartisan cooperation, critical thinking, attention to facts, and compromise. Boeberts ads were essentially dishonest, and her willingness to stoop to slander for political gain disqualifies her from being a trustworthy representative in Congress.

In her July op-ed in the Sentinel, Boebert commits to failed fiscal policy. After stating that we need leaders who will promote the responsible and limited vision for government our founders gave their lives over, Boebert demonstrates her own limited vision by embracing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act [which] has allowed Americans to keep an extra $100 a month in their paycheck. She promises to defend this tax cut against a possible Joe Biden presidency. On this basis she seeks our vote.

Unfortunately, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act is a fiscal Trojan Horse that increased the 2019 deficit to $984 billion and raised the federal national debt to $23 trillion. This 2017 tax cut fulfilled Trumps campaign promises to wealthy donors, but it added a trillion-dollar deficit to our economy during a time of prosperity and economic growth when we should have been saving money and lessening the federal debt. Moreover, 34% of the tax benefits went to the wealthiest 1% of Americans, according to the Tax Policy Center. Working families did benefit, but the tax cut to corporations marked a significant shift in wealth distribution to large corporations and rich Americans. JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley received $18 billion of tax relief. The benefit to the Koch brothers is estimated at more than $1 billion a year, and companies including Pfizer, General Electric and Chevron will save billions in taxes. Little of this economic gain benefited wage-earning Americans as companies spent their extra cash on dividends and stock buybacks. Workers wages saw little change and are still below their 2008 level.

Either Lauren Boebert in 2020 does not understand the harmful fiscal results of the 2017 tax cut, in which case she is politically irresponsible and willfully ignorant, or she knowingly supports billions of dollars of tax relief for a banking industry and other major corporations awash with profits, adding a trillion dollars to the national deficit in 2019. In this case she is a glib political huckster, full of self-promotion, lacking good judgment.

Either way Lauren Boebert is not capable of being an independent voice, a wise judge of legislation, and an informed representative negotiating on our behalf with federal land managers and other government and private sector personnel.

Fortunately CD 3 does have someone with competence, integrity and legislative experience running for Congress. A mainstream, fiscally conservative Democrat, Diane Mitsch-Bush has long served Colorado well and deserves our November vote.

Charles Kerr is a retired Grand Junction High School and Colorado Mesa University teacher. He served on the BLM Northwestern Resource Advisory Council.

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Boebert incapable of being an independent voice negotiating on our behalf - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel