Employers

Sen. Mark Udall wants to put Colorado's coal and petroleum producers out of business. He wants to send consumers' utility bill even higher. And he wants to pick winners and losers among developers of new businesses in the energy and other industries.

He thinks he knows what's best for Colorado, and he won't listen to anybody who disagrees, including voters who almost defeated Sen. Michael Bennet and sent three Colorado Obama Democrat members of the U.S.House packing.

Just how out-of-touch with Colorado economics and economic reality in general Udall is can be seen in this article that he recently co-authored with a couple of other Obama Democrats in the Senate. LINK: Clean energy: Economic key to 21st Century, by Debbie Stabenow, Kay Hagan & Mark Udall.

During last Friday's debate, John Hickenlooper said that he would fund higher education in Colorado with a "voluntary tax" on the highly regulated oil and gas exploration and production industries in the state.

That would be "extortion", charged Tom Tancredo, who has promised to not raise any taxes or fees if he is elected governor. Tancredo pointed out that because if Hickenlooper becomes governor and asks the oil and gas industry to accept a voluntary tax, they would have no choice to but to agree. If they didn't agree to the voluntary tax, Hickenlooper would impose even tougher regulations on them than Gov. Bill Ritter has. The Ritter regulations on Colorado's oil and gas producers has cost the state thousands of jobs, according to Repubicans. Democrats say the jobs have been lost because of sharply depressed natural gas prices. There's some truth in both arguments. Tancredo spoke to a rally in Littleton Saturday evening.

In a smart bid for free media, "conservative independent" Tom Tancredo announced that tomorrow he will disclose the names of the people he would appoint to his cabinet if he won the gubernatorial race against John Hickenlooper in the Nov. 2 election. 

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.

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.

Anti-worker Democrats continue to attack employers and potential new employers with tax increases that would take Colorado further down the road to being another California, which is driving employers away instead of attracting them. The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce is warning Governor Bill Ritter and the Democrats who control the General Assembly that six bills would hurt the Colorado economy. Miles Moffeit’s impact graphs are below the jump:

What Democrats don’t get is that the Amazon Tax will destroy mom and pop shops and small business jobs in Colorado and across the country.

It won’t bring business to Colorado retailers, but it will hurt their online businesses.

Amost every brick and mortar store also has a web site that sells out of state.

If every state follows Colorado’s lead, the cost of the software and staff needed to comply with the Amazon tax will be prohibitive for most small mom and pop shops. To comply with states’ sales tax laws, online merchants have to buy services that track not just states’ sales taxes, but also sales taxes imposed by municipalities and counties. Then they have to buy and maintain software that makes sure that they collect taxes from customers and remit those taxes to the states and their municipalities. It’s very complicated and time-consuming to comply with such laws. So millions of mom and pop shops will just shut down their internet businesses because the cost of complying with the Amazon Tax will be prohibitive.

The winners will be Amazon and other big companies that can afford the software and staff required to comply with the Amazon Taxes.

Under Obama, of course, unions want to pass card check laws that would make it easier for unions to organize Amazon and other big online merchants. So the Amazon tax would enrich union leaders.

The Amazon Tax would increase sales tax revenues for the states until it wouldn’t. For as small businesses dropped their e-commerce businesses because they couldn’t afford to comply with the Amazon tax, their incomes would fall, reducing states’ income tax revenues. They would lay people off. That would cost more income taxes and increase unemployment benefits costs.

What we have here are power-greedy, tax and spend Democrats putting their political interests ahead of the interests of millions of mom and pop shops and other small businesses. Democrats always have been anti-small business because they hate people who take risks, make money and make them look weak, stupid and dependent.

The Amazon Tax just punctuates the anti-small business instincts of the left.

LINKS:

Amazon Tax laws signal business unfriendliness and will worsen short-term budget problems. Joseph Henchman, Tax Foundation special report.

Colorado Senate Majority Leader John Morse goes all Shakespearian on Amazon.com. By J. L. James.

Amazon fallout for Colorado Dems. By Ben DeGrow.

Stop the ‘Amazon tax’! Ari Armstrong.

Online tax issue needs federal fix; Though frustrating, Amazon’s decision to drop state affiliates wasn’t surprising and shows a need for much broader solutions. Denver Post editorial.

Colo. Governor Bill Ritter Shows DA Roots: Treats Amazon Like Criminal Defendant for Affiliate Move. Ex-Pat Ex-Lawyer.

Scott McInnis lives in Grand Junction near Colorado’s western border, and he noted in his speech to the Highlands Ranch Republican breakfast today that all of the state’s top Democrats live within the Denver city limits. McInnis, the Republican’s presumptive nominee to run for governor against Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, said that Hick, Governor Bill Ritter, Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, General Assembly committee chairmen and some vice chairmen all live in Denver or Metro Denver.

This little jab at Hickenlooper was about as hard as McInnis got in his standard spiel, which he’s had to edit since the mayor became the Democrats’ candidate, replacing Ritter who decided that he won’t run for a second term. 

When he accused Ritter and Democrats of killing Colorado jobs by driving natural gas exploration companies out of the state and by raising taxes, McInnis always pointed out that while Ritter and General Assembly Democrats raised taxes and imposed tough, costly regulations on natural gas companies, “the Mayor sat across the street” and didn’t try to stop them even though they affected jobs in Denver. McInnis didn’t mention Hickenlooper by name.

Although McInnis didn’t explicitly promise to not raise taxes or pledge to support TABOR as directly as he did a couple weeks ago at a Castle Rock Republican breakfast, he blasted Democrats in the General Assembly for raising taxes in 13 bills by eliminating tax exemptions and credits during the recession.

Governor Bill Ritter, with the support of Democrat gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper and Democrats in the General Assembly, are trying to destroy jobs and small businesses by imposing a tax on direct mail (“junk mail”) that would cost the state jobs and more tax revenues than it would generate

I used to be in the direct mail business as a printer, mailer and advertiser. Colorado is an expensive place to buy printing, and with postage costs out of sight, direct mail doesn’t make much sense for a lot of businesses anymore.

Here’s who the Colorado Democrats’ direct mail tax, which is being carried by Rep. Jack Pommer (D-Boulder), will hurt:

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a “business friendly” Democrat who jumped in to Colorado’s gubernatorial race this week, supports taxes and regulations that caused the new owner of Frontier Airlines to move its headquarters to Indianapolis.

Republican guberntorial candidate Scott McInnis is using the Frontier decision to make the point that like Governor Bill Ritter, Hick is more interested in protecting government jobs with tax increases and make work regulations than in retaining major employers in Denver and Colorado. His press release follows:

Trade wars destroy jobs. Governor Bill Ritter joined President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats in their efforts to destroy jobs by requiring government agencies to “Buy American.” Retaliation is sure to come. Looks pretty dumb and unAmerican.

Governor Bill Ritter has made a big deal of new “green jobs” in Colorado, which the state has subsidized without regard to the economics of businesses like those that make wind-turbines that generate electricity on wind farms.

Now the smart criminal lawyer and former district attorney is learning a little about economics. When products don’t sell, companies lay off workers even if they’ve been started with financial help from Colorado’s taxpayers. Take Vestas, for example. The wind turbine maker has furloughed most of its 500 employees at its Windsor plant, and has frozen hiring for two new plants that are under construction in Brighton. The company says these are temporary setbacks, but only time will tell. It’s better to make Colorado a good place for all businesses to thrive instead of subsidizing individual companies that can run into hard times without notice.

When governments get involved in markets by subsidizing some players and leaving others to twist in the wind, the failures of centralized, Soviet-style planning show how smart people make dumb decisions every time.

The “brains” behind the Obama administration’s green jobs initiatives are making highly politicized government investments in renewable energy projects backed by General Electric and 

Envirofit™ International of Fort Collins, CO, gets a nice play in today’s Wall Street Journal, which reports on low-tech approaches to reducing pollution and the production of green house gases. Envirofit™ has sold more than 100,000 low-soot cooking stoves in southern India, the Journal reports. Similar efforts are being developed for Mexico, Kenya and other third-world countries by consulting firms such as Berkeley Air Monitoring Group. Jeffery Ball’s impact graphs:

Republican gubernatorial candidates Dan Maes and Scott McInnis agree that if either one is elected governor next year, Bill Ritter’s job-killing oil and gas rules would be overturned by a new governor.