"Out of touch" and "fiscally irresponsible" were the adjectives used by GOP Senators to describe this year's budget, which despite the recession, grew by 6 percent and 700 state employees.
"In spite of unprecedented new spending, next year the state of Colorado will be $1 billion short," said Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction. "This bill does nothing--literally nothing--to steer us away from this funding cliff."
Republicans also pointed out the budget has grown from $12 billion to $19 billion, or 58 percent, in the last decade. Denver Democrat Sen. Chris Romer argued the budget expansion was justified because the population has grown by over 40 percent. Romer's statistics were promptly questioned by Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray. "Get your facts straight, my goodness," said Brophy, who pointed out that, according to the US Census Bureau, population in Colorado has only grown 16 percent.
Brophy noted that when Republicans were in charge during the last recession they were able to decrease the size of the state work force, while keeping K-12 education funding requirements under Amendment 23 intact. Meanwhile, Democrats have cut K-12 education and grown the number of state employees. "There is no way to justify an expansion of government that is more than double our population growth," Brophy said. "That means every year Colorado families are further weighted down by an increased tax burden."
Brophy and Penry criticized the budget for relying too heavily on fee increases, federal bailout dollars and accounting gimmicks in order to balance. The state's chief economist Natalie Mullis recently echoed Republican sentiment that all of the Democrats' one-time budget fixes make fiscal planning extremely difficult.
"This budget represents a lot of hard work, but it also represents a failure of leadership, a failure once more to steer this state onto sensible fiscal ground," Penry said.