Pam Gulleson Is All Over The Map On Spending Cuts

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Written By:
Rob Port

Sep 28, 2012
9:45am

Earlier this month liberal Democrat House candidate Pam Gulleson, in talking about the nation’s fiscal problems, suggested a 10% across-the-board cut of federal spending.

“I would really tell everyone that comes with their budget, which every single agency does. That they need to come prepared to make significant cuts, probably 10-percent over the next ten years,” Gulleson told KFYR television.

During last night’s debate, though, Gulleson changed that figure a bit. She suggested only a 5% across-the-board cut in spending (video here):

“We need to ask every agency to come forward with reduced budgets,” Gulleson said. She proposed a 5 percent reduction by all federal agencies.

But does Gulleson actually mean what she says? She has spent a lot of time hitting Republicans, and her opponent Kevin Cramer specifically, for the lack of a farm bill. But when asked about spending cuts intended for the food stamps program contained in the farm bill, Gulleson thought a 2% cut was too extreme:

Democrat Pam Gulleson, his opponent in the race for U.S. House, says she agrees with the expansion of the crop insurance program. Overall, she says both bills have many good things to them, but she is concerned with the $16 billion in cuts to the food stamp program in the House version.

“I think the House version goes too far. You know a lot of people that are on nutrition programs; this is our seniors, our school hot lunch programs, senior citizens and the working poor. I think it`s important that we find a middle ground.”

Cramer says the cuts only represent a two-percent reduction, which he believes would be a small step in the right direction.

Gulleson is for either 5% or 10% across-the-board cuts in federal spending, depending on when you ask her apparently, but when you start talking about cuts for a specific program suddenly even a 2% reduction is too much.

Meaning Gulleson is only nominally against spending reductions. She’ll talk about them generally, no doubt as part of keeping up the “independent candidate” character she’s portraying on the campaign trail, but she’s not supporting them specifically.