The Government is like a baby's alimentary canal...

Activities at the capitol this week could be sufficiently captioned:

“The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy

appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.”

-Ronald Reagan

I’ll leave you with two examples:


SB108

Statehouse Democrats ran the quarter billion dollar vehicle registration fee bill through the legislature this week over the strong opposition of Republicans. Our car registrations will go up by more than $40 per car this year, and every year, and now local bureaucrats can put toll booths on roads you’ve already paid for. This amounts to a massive tax increase that didn’t receive voter approval as required by the Taxpayers Bill of Rights.


SB 228

Today, the Dem plan to get rid of the long-standing government spending limit came to the floor of the senate. We signaled our intent to stop the passage of this bill – that will spell runaway social program spending and a slowdown in transportation investment – by beginning debate today by having the 38-page bill at length. The rationale: if they want to ram yet another fiscally reckless bill through, we’re going to fight them at every turn to slow this down long enough for the public to find out what is about to happen. Stay tuned, and wish us luck.

You can certainly contact the Governor, encouraging him to veto SB 108 (the transportation “this-is-not-a-tax tax increase” bill. And pass the word around about SB 228 to your friends. Both of these will amount to significant new government growth in a time Coloradans can least afford it.

On the bright side, I was able to get HB1162 passed out of committee to the floor where it awaits debate. In short this bill requires governments like Denver, who own land in other counties, to enter agreements with those “host” counties when homes may be put at risk of wildfire because Denver’s land is overgrown with timber. Many of these “mountain parks” have not seen a chain saw or fire for decades and are serious cause for concern. It’s time to be good guests and work with “host” counties, like Jeffco, to create a solution.