Budget

Former Republican candidate for Treasurer of Colorado, Ali Hasan, and his mother have contributed $10,000 of the $12,000 that proponents for Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 have raised, Peter Roper reports. Opponents of the tax cutting measures have raised $4 million, he reports. LINK: Hasans top contributors to state’s anti-tax ballot questions. By Peter Roper. Good story.

In the last session of the Colorado General Assembly, a bi-partisan coalition passed cuts in state employees’ benefits annual cost of living increases so that PERA will be more likely to be able to pay pensions down the road. Ron Lieber calls the legislature’s action courageous. Pensioners are suing over breach of contract. And gubernatorial candidate, Tom Tancredo, says the legislature didn’t go far enough. He told a recent press conference that more needs to be done to protect taxpayers from having to bear the cost of making up for PERA’s under funded liabilities. PERA is the agency that administers pensions for employes of the state of Colorado and other governmental employers in the state. Your homework is here and here. 

Gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo has posted a modestly ambitious plan for making Colorado a strong and prosperous place to run a business and raise a family.

His four-point agenda for Creating Jobs looks like a good conservative, pro-business, pro-worker platform. Unlike Scott McInnis, Tancredo is intellectually honest about how little power a Colorado governor has when it comes to creating jobs. That is, a governor has no power over the nation’s fiscal or monetary policies or its labor laws, environmental laws or international trade agreements. The plan with my comments in italics:

1. Restore the business sales tax exemptions that were eliminated by the Ritter “Dirty Dozen” Tax hikes, the Senior Homestead Exemption, and roll back the mill levy freeze.
2. Repeal the job-killing Business Personal Property Tax. This probably would bring more than enough new jobs to Colorado  to cover the lost tax revenues, and it would encourage much more capital investments in the state.
3. Revisit and revise harmful Ritter-era regulations, including the restrictive new oil and gas regulations. Colorado’s regulations favor huge companies that have staff who deal with such regulations. The Ritter regulations are anti small business and small employer. They discriminate against small, Colorado-based exploration and production companies and drive them to other states.
4. Protect American workers (and help honest employers ensure that their employees are legally in the country) through the use of a mandatory workplace verification system such as E-Verify. Every honest employer is for this plan. Employers who exploit underpaid illegals and the lawyers, educators, health workers and social workers who profit from helping illegals oppose fixing the system. Illegal immigrants distort American labor markets in favor of unscrupulous employers and against under paid American workers.

His four point agenda for Modernizing Government (instead of Fiscal Conservatism as posted yesterday) looks conservative, but not all independents will go for it. My comments are in italics:

1. Build a “zero- based” budget. Lots of politicians have proposed this over the years. I don’t know that any legislatures ever went along. Colorado has a weak governor form of government, and I doubt this is doable.
2. Restore the limit on state spending. This is a really broad statement. Would this be done in cooperation with the General Assembly or by ballot initiative?
3. Achieve cost savings by contracting with the private sector, where appropriate, to carry out certain state services. This makes a lot of sense provided that the state retains the powers and hires the talent needed to ensure that private contractors improve the quality of state services while containing or reducing expenses. Today, we contract out road building and other construction services in ways that encourage over building. Contractors are major contributors to Colorado’s political campaigns, and they contribute to the candidates who they think will spend the most money on their services and will hire them.
4. Refuse federal dollars that come with unsustainable, long-term state spending commitments or harmful federal mandates. Nice and idealistic but a not totally practical plan. If we don’t take our dollars from the Fed, New York, Illinois and other unionized and nearly bankrupt states get them. Tancredo needs to explain which dollars he would take and which he wouldn’t. The General Assembly may not go along.

Securing Colorado is the agenda everyone’s waiting to see. It looks great to me. I think it will appeal to most conservatives who aren’t trying to exploit illegal immigrants’ low wage demands, and a lot of independents will like the plan. Republicans who want to see this plan implemented must help the GOP take back the legislature and elect Tancredo. The plan:

1. Implement tough new Arizona-style interior and employer enforcement laws.
2. Withhold state funds from local governments that enact so-called “sanctuary policies”
3. Oppose providing taxpayer subsidized in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants.
4. Audit state and local government compliance with state immigration laws.

LINKs:

Tom Tancredo for Governor.

How maddening. Both Scott McInnis and Dan Maes have blown opportunities to sell themselves in today’s Denver Post. When you’re interviewed by the editorial board of a newspaper, show some respect by doing your home work, preparing for predictable questions and taking clear stands on tough issues. Be articulate.

Both interviews were way too short to give the candidates time and space to discuss the issues in depth. That’s the difference between a space-limited printed newspaper and a blog, where space is unlimited.

LINKs:

A conversation with Scott McInnis. Denver Post editorial board transcript.

A conversation with Dan Maes. Denver Post editorial board transcript.

McInnis’ record shows slow steps to the right. By Karen E. Crummy.

Gubernatorial candidate McInnis’ voting record inconsistent on abortion. By Karen E. Crummy.

It’s time for Colorado’s voters, politicians and editorial writers  to face reality.

In his Denver Post column this morning, Dan Haley, editor of the paper’s editorial page, shows how unrealistic the state’s opinion leaders and most of its politicians are being about the state’s budgetary and economic problems. He pleads for more spending on K-12 and higher education and for more spending on roads and bridges. He uses the old, wrong arguments that employers won’t come to Colorado if the state cuts its spending on those services.

Employers won’t come to Colorado as long as it looks like it will soon be another California, New York or Illinois. And employers won’t come to Colorado as long as the economy is depressed, President Obama is killing jobs and it is impossible for employers’ workers in other states to sell their homes and finance new ones in Colorado.

If the colleges and universities weren’t so wrapped up in protecting academic careers instead of restructuring and designing majors and courses that would prepare students for the real world, Colorado’s tuition could be cut by 40% to 50% in no time. How do I know? Just look at today’s tuition versus five and ten years ago. Tuition soars because academia is out of control, and the politicians who oversee our colleges and universities aren’t doing their jobs.

As for K-12, where is the proof that more spending would improve educational outcomes and that less spending would hurt outcomes. It just isn’t there.

And where is the proof that businesses will move to Colorado or leave because of our funding of higher and K-12 education? If you’re listening to educators, you’re listening to the wrong people. If you’re listening to economic develop people who know they can’t bring jobs to Colorado, you’re listening to the wrong people.

Having driven coast to coast and around much of Colorado over the last 11 months, I believe Colorado has some of the best and least congested highways in the nation. It is time to take a break from road building until the state’s budget problems are resolved. 

If you think Colorado, which is in relatively good shape, thanks to TABOR, is less competitive in Obama’s depressed economy than other states, you’re not paying attention.

What the gubernatorial candidates should be promising is that they will do all they can to keep the General Assembly from passing more job-killing laws. They can’t promise to bring jobs to Colorado, because where employers relocate is out of the control of politicians. As long as employers’ workers can’t sell their homes or finance new ones in Colorado, very few businesses will be moving to Colorado over the next 10 or 20 years.

McInnis and Hickenlooper should be promising to roll back laws and regulations that make it more expensive to administer K-12 and higher education. They should be promising to ease labor and environmental laws that make it more expensive to run businesses and not-for-profit organizations in Colorado.

They should be streamlining the government not by just cutting jobs and understaffing the state government,  but by restructuring government so that it is not so expensive to operate and so that fewer people will be needed by government agencies. That means keeping unions’ leaders from increasing their incomes and power at the expense of Colorado’s taxpayers. It means removing restrictions on campaign fundraising so that people who are smart doers can run for office and fix the state’s problems. And it means putting the interests of Coloradans ahead of those of unions, trade associations, road contractors, educators and the state’s other vendors.

Can Republican Scott McInnis and Democrat John Hickenlooper continue to punt when asked how they’ll balance Colorado’s budget?

That’s what they’re doing, according to a story by Tim Hoover. And they’ll both get away with it unless one of them shows he’s serious about being governor and stops blowing off Colorado’s voters.

They’re both being irresponsible. Neither has studied the budget or really knows what to do. McInnis says he’ll restore the struggling Colorado economy. That is just nonsense. No governor, no President and no politician is going to fix the economy and thereby increase tax collections. The politicians, in fact, are doing all they can to kill jobs, especially the Obama Democrats. Hickenlooper obviously wants to increase taxes and spending, but he won’t admit it.

At this point, Colorado voters are in for a frustrating gubernatorial campaign. Neither candidate has done or is willing to do his homework and talk straight about the state’s budget.

Who will voters trust? Why will they trust either of these guys? The governor’s race is shaping up to be a personality contest, and that will be tough for McInnis.

Michael Barone makes the case that Republican Congressional candidates must propose real spending cuts to catch the attention of angry voters. Tentativeness, slight of hand and false promises won’t work, he warns.

In Colorado, the question is, will Republican gubernatorial candidates, Dan Maes and Scott McInnis, get real about balancing the state’s budget with spending cuts instead of—wink, wink—promising they won’t go to voters with tax increase proposals? So far, the signs are not good. Both candidates are making promises that they probably can’t keep, and they’re avoiding offending government contractors who promise to fund their campaigns. They’re me-tooing each other and making liberal Democrat John Hickenlooper look conservative.

When businesses and individuals get in economic and financial trouble, they take drastic moves to avoid bankruptcy. They stop borrowing, sell assets, stop spending on new ventures and cut back on maintenance. 

Politicians, on the other hand, figure they can use taxpayers’ money to make themselves more powerful. In California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and other states dominated by Democrats, politicians have put their governments on the verge of bankruptcy, and they’re still not coming to grips with their problems. They’re taking care of their campaign contributors who are taking care of their careers.

McInnis, the long-time state legislator and then member of Congress seems to be playing that game, and Maes, the rookie, seems to be saying, “Me, too.”

What they should be promising is that if elected they will use their veto powers to put a halt to all new capital spending on infrastructure that the state is in any way involved in. Colorado’s roads and bridges are fine. We don’t need all of the new intersections that are being built at great, inflated prices, and we can live with what we have until our budget is balanced, taxes are cut and the economy stablizes.

Until the state can afford to do more, fix the pot holes and broken pavement and patch a few bridges. Don’t build new roads, buildings, university labs or other public facilities.

Political fundraisers will object:

• “But that will put overpaid construction workers and their employers out of work.” Yep. Anybody who builds a business that serves only one customer takes a risk that that customer will stop using them someday for whatever reason. Bad decisions like that should not be the taxpayers’ problem.
• “But that will make Colorado lose it’s share of federal spending on infrastructure.” Yep. Help the feds balance the federal budget.
• “But funds in the transportation fund have to be spent.” Change the law. Use the funds to balance the budget. Cut the Democrats’ recent vehicle tax and fee increases. Put money in consumers’ pockets so they can help rebuild the economy and survive the recession that millions still are suffering.
• “But the construction workers will lose their homes, file for bankruptcy, leave the state and expand our Medicaid and welfare costs.” Yep. Millions are being hurt by over spending, and if government spending isn’t brought under control, we’ll all lose our homes and file for bankruptcy.
• “But then we won’t get the campaign contributions we need to win elections and stop the Democrats.” Yep. And they won’t get those contributions, either. Live with it.
• “You just don’t understand the complexity.” Not the details, but I understand that politicians are screwing things up, and I’ve had enough of that same old same old.
• “If you’re so smart, let’s sit down together and you can show me how to cut the budget, line by line.” Nope. That’s your job. Do it for once.
• “I’ll be voted out of office if I do the right thing.” Poor baby.

Colorado is a “tinder box waiting to explode,” and all Republicans have to do is “touch a match to it” and watch it explode into a landslide victory in the fall, but that won’t happen unless Republicans unify and run a positive campaign, State House Asssistant Minority Leader David Balmer told this morning’s weekly breakfast meeting of the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club.

“We have to dismantle everything Democrats have done to make Colorado unfriendly to business,” Ballmer declared. He said that every bill passed by the Democrat-controlled General Assembly included pro-union provisions that make Colorado one of the least business friendly states in America. Tax increases enacted by the Democrats will kill jobs and keep businesses from moving to or expanding in Colorado and will reduce the state’s tax and fee revenues. And, Balmer said, trial lawyers got laws passed that will discourage inventors from inventing in Colorado and entrepreneurs from taking the risks of starting new businesses in the state. New businesses create the most new jobs of any employers.

The same kind of job destruction is happening in Congress under President Obama because Democrats are anti-business, Balmer said.

This is why for the first time in years, Republicans can exploit their brand and run on the same issues in Colorado and on the national level, Balmer said.

Republicans must be pro-business because growing businesses create jobs, he said. “We will protect small and large businesses from unreasonable taxes, fees and insurance mandate,” Balmer promised.

Colorado-specific mandates makes insurance premiums in many areas higher than anywhere in the U.S. other than California. (As I’ve frequently noted, mandated health insurance benefits in Colorado increase insurance premiums more than 50% over what they would be without the mandates.)

“We’ve got to be for repealing the tax increases enacted by the Democrats,” Balmer said. If the Democrats weren’t committed to protecting teachers’ incomes and pensions, there would be “plenty of areas” where Colorado’s budget could be cut.

There have been no budget cuts in Colorado, Balmer said. Instead, the Democrats have reduced the size of planned budget increases and called them budget cuts.

Balmer pointed out that the Democrats ignored the constitutional provisions of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and raised taxes without going to the voters for approval.

Republicans support TABOR and must not agree to any tinkering with it to satisfy special interests, he said. Government contractors and teachers unions want to virtually nullify TABOR, but voters know it works. It’s a good brand, Ballmer said, and Republicans will support it.

Balmer said Democrats and the teachers’ union have taken money out of transportation and infrastructure budgets and put it into boosting teachers’ incomes and pensions.

“We have to be committed to transportation infrastructure,” he declared. “People see transportation as a government function” and support spending money on it, he said.

On the other hand, Balmer took a swipe at higher education. Higher education, he said, “needs to be about teaching college students, not doing research for research sake.” Balmer said that a lot of state- and federally-funded academic research is done to build arguments in favor of liberal causes such as climate change programs.

Balmer warned GOP candidates that are in primaries that they must avoid annihilating each other.  If GOP gubernatorial candidates Scott McInnis and Dan Maes trash each other and John Hickenlooper, who is unopposed in the Democrats’ primary, gets through the primaries untouched, that will hurt the GOP nominee, Balmer warned. 

After the primary, he pleaded, Republicans must unify even though “all of us are unacceptable to each other in some respects.”

“We have to accept the blemishes of each other. If we don’t unite, we don’t win.”

Is Ken Buck really a fiscal conservative? If he’s elected to the U.S. Senate, will the Weld County District Attorney (DA) put his votes where his mouth is?

The answer seems obvious. If elected, Ken Buck would be one of the most fiscally conservative members of the U.S. Senate. After reviewing some 40 pages of

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck said in an interview in his Greeley office last week that he believes that his leading opponent, Jane Norton, would someday vote for tax increases while he never would.

During the 45-minute interview, Buck answered most of the questions I recently posted for him. I skipped a couple of the questions as we ran out of time. Most of the interview was about how his management of his office over the last five years shows he is a fiscal conservative. That will be covered in Part II of this report.

On whether Norton would ever vote for tax increases, Buck said he believes she would because, “I think that if you look at her position on Referendum C and her position with lobbyists, it indicates that she has made friends with those people and she will pay them back.”

Norton, of course, promises that she won’t raise taxes. She defends her support for Referendum C on the basis that the state of Colorado faced a fiscal crisis. Also, she notes, that—as required under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) section of the state’s constitution—the issue was presented to voters and they approved the tax increase. When she supported Referendum C, she was former Governor Bill Owens’ lieutenant governor.

The next question was: If Bill Owens had made you Lt. Gov. and part of his team and asked you to support Ref. C, would you have backed him up or defied him by opposing C?

Buck answered:“I would choose the team that I was on very carefully. I did not support Referendum C, and I would not be put in the position of supporting Referendum C.”  (Please click on headline to see rest of the interview.)

Ex-Pat Ex Lawyer has gotten her State Senator, Dan Gibbs (D-SD 16), to request a study of salaries paid to the governor and other state and county elected officials. Some look vastly under paid, and some probably are over paid. Which ones? I think statewide officials and member of the legislature are way under paid.

Ex-Pat Ex-Lawyer has done some excellent research and is asking why Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert’s budget has increased so rapidly during his seven years in office, and a Jane Norton supporter has asked the same questions about Ken Buck’s budget increases. Hurlbert is running for the state senate from district 16, and Ken Buck is a leading candidate for the Republican’s nomination to the U.S. Senate. Both men claim to be fiscal conservatives, and people who oppose them are questioning how conservative they are given their budgetary records as DAs.

Since I don’t know much about DAs’ budgets, I’m 

John Hickenlooper Thursday said it is “crazy” to raise taxes during a recession and that the anti-business messages coming from Governor Bill Ritter and legislative leaders are “crazy,” but he must think there is no recession because he raised fees by about $5 million a year for 2010, the enterprise reporter Christopher N. Osher reports this morning. Is it accurate to note that the mayor has raised taxes and fees five or six times over the last six years?

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis says in a press release today that the enactment of ObamaCare would impose budget-killing unfunded mandates on the state of Colorado. Yesterday, his opponent, Democrat Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, told business leaders at the South Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce that he would have preferred a 20- to 50-page bill, but he didn’t say he opposed it. He also said he wouldn’t raise taxes in a recession. ObamaCare imposes huge tax increases that would seriously depress the economy and kill jobs. In his press release, McInnis said:

On FaceBook, U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton says the negative ads that backers of Ken Buck are running against her have been found by 9News to be untrue. And she links to 9News’ ‘Truth Test,’ which doesn’t discuss the ads that are attacking Norton. Instead, the ‘Truth Test’ evaluates a TV ad being run by Norton. In that ad, she claims that she controlled spending in Colorado, but 9News says, “This isn’t true and here’s why.” Read the whole post and you’ll probably conclude that Norton has stretched to find “savings” that she could claim in response to Taxpayers for Liberty’s ads, which falsely accuse her of inflating government budgets. Both Buck and Norton need to be honest with voters. Basically, 9News is saying Norton hasn’t had the power to increase or cut government spending during her bureaucratic and political careers.