At this point, ramming through the Dirty Dozen tax hikes has Colorado Democrats in such political hot water, why not just go ahead and swim in it? That must be the reasoning behind the effort to make things even worse by changing the temporary tax hikes into permanent tax hikes.
It used to be about half the bills would eventually reduce the respective tax rates to their current level. Not anymore:
Republicans believe that Democrats are using the current budget crisis as an excuse to permanently raise taxes on Colorado families and businesses. “If the tax increases are only meant to help the state fill the budget gap, as Democrats claim, then why aren’t we making them all temporary?” asked Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield.
Then there’s HB 1193 in particular. As Rossputin points out, Colorado Democrats are going to drive Overstock.com’s affiliate program out of the state with this legislation. That is, unless they regain their senses first. As I noted before, HB 1193 passed the state house by the narrowest of margins (33-32), with Democrat Wes McKinley as the deciding vote.
Will the majority party in our state senate wise up, are they just simply Stuck on Stupid? Many of these bills will end up in conference committee, which will just increase the harsh glare of public scrutiny on the Democrats’ bad policy and terrible politics. Sayonara.
[…] when most lawmakers (i.e., Democrats) at the State Capitol indeed are (this very week) ramming through the “Dirty Dozen” tax credit repeals (aka tax […]