Copyright 1999 The Denver Post Corporation
The
Denver Post
January 11, 1999 Monday 2D EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A-04
LENGTH: 642 words
HEADLINE:
Colo. delegation gets its House in order Representatives start pushing their
agendas
BYLINE: By Elliot Zaret, States News Service
BODY:
WASHINGTON - Even as the
Senate is tied up deciding the fate of President Clinton, Colorado's
congressional representatives are looking past impeachment and pushing their
legislative agendas.
With Colorado Republicans pushing tax cuts and
their Democratic counterparts pushing environmental legislation, the lawmakers
want to hit the ground running with the introduction of new bills and the return
of some that didn't make it last year.
Though the six lawmakers have
different views and agendas, they all seem to agree on one thing: It's time to
get back to business.
"We all care about our constituents and their
lives, and we want to pass legislation that improves them," said Denver
Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette.
In the first week of the new session,
Reps. Joel Hefley, R-Colorado Springs, and Bob Schaffer, R-Fort Collins, have
introduced legislation. Taxes, budget targeted
Hefley sponsored a bill
to cut the capital gains tax rate from 20 percent to 15 percent and slice it as
low as 7.5 percent for lower income levels. Schaffer introduced retired Rep. Dan
Schaefer's balanced-budget amendment resolution, which has previously failed to
garner the two-thirds support necessary to begin the process of altering the
Constitution.
Tax cuts and budget reduction promise to be a theme for at
least the Republicans in the delegation.
Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Glenwood
Springs, hopes to use his new position on the influential Ways and Means
Committee - which controls tax, health care, Social Security and trade issues -
to push for tax credits for the middle class. McInnis said the current system of
tax credits, which emphasizes giving credits to the working poor, is "just
welfare" by another name.
Schaffer plans legislation to abolish the
inheritance tax and exempt agricultural properties from estate taxes. And
freshman Rep. Tom Tancredo, who replaced Schaefer in the 6th District, plans to
make tax cuts his top priority. He will focus on eliminating two
telephone taxes: a 3 percent excise tax, and a tax on
long-distance calls.
"I always said I had three goals when I got
elected: Tax reduction, tax elimination and tax reform," Tancredo said.
Along with the tax issues, Colorado's Republicans will be pushing for
increased military spending and a missile-defense system.
"The lesson of
these recent incursions with Iraq is that our troops are not as well equipped as
they should be, and our troops are spread pretty thin," Schaffer said.
He also plans to introduce a plan to reform the education bureaucracy.
McInnis hopes to reintroduce a bill he co-wrote with retired Boulder
Democratic Rep. David Skaggs to give federal wilderness protection to the
Spanish Peaks in southern Colorado, and to push his SEEDS program, which
refurbishes old government computers and donates them to public schools.
DeGette began the session with a focus on environmental legislation. She
plans to reintroduce a bill to give grants and loans to businesses for the
purchase and environmental cleanup of abandoned properties called "brownfields."
Already controversial
A second DeGette plan has become controversial
even before it is finished. She is working on a bill that would give federal
wilderness protection to 1 million acres of federal lands statewide.
"With all the rampant growth we have, it's our job as custodians of the
state to preserve what wilderness we have left," DeGette said.
But
McInnis has promised to block the legislation, saying much of the land is
already too developed to warrant wilderness designation. "Every highway that
goes through Colorado goes through federal lands," he said.
Freshman
Democrat Mark Udall of Boulder said he is taking his time before introducing his
first bill.
"I want to be thoughtful, that I come in and I listen and
learn," Udall said. "That I'm not just here to grandstand."
LOAD-DATE: January 12, 1999 
