While we're killing time waiting for newly selected U.S. Senator Michael Bennet to make up his mind on the union card-check bill, we can entertain ourselves with a good, old-fashioned nickname debate. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has started a video campaign (watch below the fold) to label Colorado's junior senator as "Back 'N' Forth Bennet": … [Read more...]
House Education Committee Democrats Killed Spending Transparency… Fast
One of my favorite aphorisms about Colorado politics is that the House Education Committee is where good education reform goes to die. Case in point is Senate Bill 57, the school spending transparency legislation that committee Democrats shot down after hearing more than 30 citizens and activists who volunteered to come down and testify for the bill. Thanks to a Face The State mini-investigation, we learn today it was even worse than that:Also known as Senate Bill 57, the bill was postponed indefinitely after four hours of committee debate that lasted late into the evening. [Democrat] Speaker Terrance Carroll and [Republican] House Minority Leader Mike May arrived to work the next morning ready to revive it. But they were too … [Read more...]
Poor Timing of FasTracks Tax Announcement Only Tip of Iceberg
It's kind of surreal to find these two headlines in the same edition of the Denver Post: Colo. jobless at 21-year high: "The unemployment rate hasn't been this high since April 1988, when it was at 6.7 percent. It is also higher than the 6.3 percent rate reached during the depths of the dot-com bust from 2001 to 2003." Doubling FasTracks sales tax gets nod: "On Wednesday, a majority of the Metro Mayors Caucus tentatively approved a plan to salvage FasTracks by asking voters for another 0.4 percent sales tax. The mayors, hoping to see the entire $6.9 billion expansion finished by 2017, are gambling that voters will maintain support for the project despite higher costs and some of the weakest economic conditions in the past … [Read more...]
Blago and Bailouts Connected in Anger-Inducing Big Government Theme
Economist Steve Horwitz ties the thread between the two mammoth stories running through the blogosphere right now (H/T Brian Doherty, Reason):I can't help but note that yet another politician is indicted on corruption charges at the very same time we are handing over unprecedented power to the political class as we partially nationalize the banking system and, apparently, the Big Three auto companies. I simply do not understand how those who are in favor of giving government all of these new powers because they sincerely believe that doing so will work out the way their blackboard designs intended can keep a straight face. What kind of cognitive dissonance must it take to believe that the people YOU are handing power over to are "not … [Read more...]
Colorado Dems Fail to Lead or Take Responsibility, Irony Lost on Dead Guvs
The Dead Governors couldn't even bring themselves to defend their majority Democrat Party for accomplishing so little. So they tried to make fun of the minority Republicans for not getting much done themselves either:How do you write a critical op-ed about how Democrats talked and Republicans acted without bothering to mention anything that you actually accomplished yourself? For example: "On health care, we tried to clear away regulatory hurdles..." Good job on trying! Do Colorado's Left-leaning online apologists get the irony here? "You Republicans are going to criticize our Democrats for not fixing the state's problems? Well, I know we were in charge, and there were only 60 of us compared to 40 of you, but you didn't get anything … [Read more...]