Mark Hillman - former state senate majority leader and former state treasurer - once again has established himself as a leading voice of fiscal sanity in Colorado. In an op-ed in today's Denver Post, he assails Governor Bill Ritter and his Democratic colleagues at the helm of the state legislature for their ongoing mismanagement of the looming budget crisis:Balancing a budget during a recession is a difficult job, certainly. But balancing this year's budget didn't need to be this hard if only the leaders at the Capitol had learned from the last recession — or listened to those who experienced it. Last spring, as the economic storm clouds gathered, Gov. Bill Ritter and legislative leaders had opportunities to take precautions. One … [Read more...]
Whimsical Case for a “Progressive” Third Party to Replace the GOP
Are you up for a little distracting whimsy? A former elected official, Boulder attorney and self-proclaimed "former Republican" (one of the more popular descriptors being bandied about these days) offers this (over) dose of elitist smugness, painful self-indulgence, overwrought rhetoric, and selective historical knowledge:I was a Republican for 28 years. Like so many others who now vote Democratic, I didn’t leave the party — it left me. Based on the analyses of this month’s election, it also left college graduates, suburbanites and Hispanics in the red-state dust. The sad fact is that a map of the few counties that voted more Republican than they did in 2004 neatly overlays maps showing the nation’s highest rates of obesity, poverty … [Read more...]