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PRESS RELEASE FROM AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM
Contact: John Kartch ( jkartch@atr.org or 202-785-0266)

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10/21/04

Salazar’s Platform Emulates Kerry’s
Americans for Tax Reform finds Coors to be a conservative candidate while Salazar is liberal

WASHINGTON – Today, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) , the nation’s leading taxpayer group, announced that Peter Coors, the Republican candidate for Colorado’s open Senate seat is the only true conservative candidate. While Democrat Ken Salazar paints himself to be a moderate, his proposed policies expose him as a liberal.

“Salazar claims to have the general interest in mind but he’s generally only interested in Kerry’s left wing politics,” said Grover Norquist, president of ATR.

Salazar supports the Kerry healthcare plan. He would impose increased regulations, price controls and formularies on Medicare drugs. According to two separate reports by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Medicare negotiations would fail to bring substantial savings as private plans would have already obtained the lowest market prices.

“Salazar’s plan to lower healthcare costs won’t ad savings, it’ll ad paper work,” continued Norquist.

Salazar, like Kerry, hopes to roll back tax cuts for the “rich.” The Kerry-Salazar campaign promises to raise taxes on only those making over $200,000 a year, or the top income tax bracket. Their campaign rhetoric does not line up with their own paper proposals posted on their websites, which would raise taxes on the top two brackets beginning at $146,750.

“Kerry and Salazar are misleading taxpayers into believing that only the top income tax bracket would see an increase,” Norquist said. “But in fact they are putting middle-class American’s on the cutting board. Salazar hasn’t begun to swing left yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

Coors, in contrast, follows conservative principals. He has signed ATR’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge," a written commitment to the taxpayers in a candidate's state to oppose any and all tax increases, joining President George W. Bush, 42 U.S. senators, and 218 members of the U.S. House of Representatives in signing the Pledge. When it comes to health care, Coors opposes large, bureaucratic programs and would, instead, provide tax credits for small business that extend health care coverage to their employees.

“Coors is a conservative in every sense of the word,” Norquist concluded. “ Ken Salazar is no moderate, he’s a wanna- be John Kerry.”

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Americans for Tax Reform is a non-partisan coalition of taxpayers and taxpayer groups who oppose any and all federal and state tax increases.  For more information, or to arrange an interview with Mr. Norquist please contact John Kartch at (202)785-0266 or by email at jkartch@atr.org.