LEGISLATIVE WRAP-UP
Published in the Pueblo Chieftain
By JOSH PENRY
It is tough times like these that set the standard for our leaders. That is because tough times require tough choices, and the ability to make those choices is the hallmark of real leadership. True leaders face reality, apply sober judgment and take selfless action.
Since the Democrats' historic sweep in 2008, that kind of willingness to make tough choices has been sorely lacking on the political landscape.
In Washington, congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama have racked up mountains of new debt - yes, even one-upping the Bush administration and congressional Republicans, whose irresponsible spending policies earlier this decade helped raise similar questions about their leadership skills.
The Democrats in Congress aren't alone in dodging the tough but necessary choices, as the just-completed session of Colorado’s General Assembly demonstrated in disturbing ways. During the last 120 days, Gov. Bill Ritter and legislative Democrats pushed through some $1 billion in new taxes and new fees and raided hundreds of millions of dollars in cash funds and trust funds.
Rather than scrutinizing government budgets to find real savings, they balanced the state’s budget on the backs of the businesses and taxpayers who are our true economic lifeblood.
The ruling party even pushed legislation that proposed to seize the private cash reserves of Pinnacol, Colorado's workers' compensation insurer of last resort. Ignoring continued warning signs of plummeting tax revenue, the governor just signed a $17.9 billion budget for next year that is likely to dip back into the red as soon as the next quarterly economic forecast is issued by legislative staff.
Propping up state budgets with accounting gimmicks, raids on trust funds and sweeping tax and fee hikes has in fact become part of an annual pattern of the party in power. Just look at the latest toll:
An increase in property taxes for seniors, who will lose their homestead exemption.
A tax hike on small businesses, which will have to fork over even more sales tax revenue.
A $250 million-a-year hike in vehicle-registration fees for all Colorado motorists, with annual fees on the typical passenger car going up $30 to $40.
A $600 million-a-year fee hike on the state's hospitals, sure to trickle down to just about every Colorado health-care consumer.
A host of nickel-and-dime fee hikes - even to get married.
There’s also an increase in state taxes on capital gains, pushed through without a vote of the people.
The party in control of our State Capitol repeatedly rebuffed overtures to save more and spend less. Instead, we saw legislation passed that blew the lid off the state's operating budget, ending a decades-old policy of limiting year-to-year growth.
That policy shift also disabled a mechanism that for years has provided the only stream of revenue from the operating budget to the state's backlogged transportation system.
Meanwhile, new regulations on Colorado's energy industry have the potential to cripple what was once our top job-creating economic sector. Driven by a narrow ideological agenda bent on scuttling fossil-fuel development, the Ritter administration brushed off appeals to strike a sensible balance between protecting our state's environment and creating jobs.
All of which isn’t to overlook some positive, bipartisan developments to emerge from the 2009 session.
A united front of Republicans and some dissenting Democrats was able to halt an attempt to end capital punishment, thus preserving an important tool for law enforcement. Members of both parties also came together to check the unwarranted expansion of the Pinon Canyon maneuver site.
Unfortunately, those were all-too-infrequent exceptions to a general pattern in which those in control of our statehouse fell back on ideology rather than buckling down and figuring out lasting solutions that work for all Coloradans.
Absent any meaningful leadership from the governor’s office, we likely can expect more of the same next year. Our fear now is that we cannot afford to wait that long. The budget could melt down before then, in which case we’ll all be back in session sooner than expected - sifting through the wreckage for some of the real solutions we should have embraced in the first place.
Josh Penry of Grand Junction is Republican leader in the Colorado Senate.