Democrat Moe Keller Happy to Spend Your Money While Spending is Good

Hey, Colorado, guess what? Leave the Democrats in charge in your state for too long, and taste the fruits of bad fiscal judgment. Witness this Face The State story about my own state senator:

Audio from April 3 uncovered by Face The State reveals Sen. Moe Keller, a Wheat Ridge Democrat and chairwoman of the Joint Budget Committee, optimistically arguing that Colorado’s economic future is a bright one, even though Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke predicted on that same day the country was headed into a recession. “We do not have a projection from our economists that we are going into a fiscal train wreck,” she said.

Moe Keller and her fellow Democrats at the State Capitol are just happy to spend your money while the spending is good. Her assessment is representative of a party comfortably in power for too long and far more concerned with using the state budget to feed its special interest friends than to save for a rainy day. Don’t you think it’s a little myopic for the Democrats at the State Capitol to pretend like there are no economic forecasters outside of the paid legislative staff?

It’s not like this is an isolated incident. Rather, it’s symptomatic of a Democratic party whose state leader Bill Ritter is more than eager to gamble with your taxpayer dollars.

As the story points out, though, the Republicans’ new minority leader in the state senate demonstrated better judgment:

But at least one Republican was not surprised by the economic downturn. During the April 3 Long Bill debate, Sen. Josh Penry, a Grand Junction Republican and the newly elected minority leader, insisted April’s revenue projections were overly optimistic, and he urged Keller to rely on information sources outside of Legislative Council. “You are wrong when you say there is no economist who says that we are in a recession or facing bad times,” he said to Keller during the April 3 debate. (MP3) “If you turn on the TV or open the newspaper…look at today’s Denver Post and what the fed chief says.”

Republicans need to keep showing this kind of smarts and fighting for sensible, fiscally conservative policies in Denver. Colorado citizens will be watching closely during the 2009 legislative session to see just how the current economic realities affect Democrat statehouse priorities.