The Taxman Wins One (Republican Adoption Of Big Government Mentality In Colorado Alert)

Opinionjournal.com ^ | 11/03/05 | John Andrews

[goldstategop]

Opponents of Referendum C counted on voters rejecting a bigger tax bite, $3,100 for the average family in the next five years, under the pressure of high prices for gasoline, home heating, health care and housing. We appealed to people's skepticism that the Democrat-led legislature would use the new money responsibly. Polling even last weekend suggested proponents hadn't made the sale.

But they surged to victory with the help of respected Republicans like Gov. Bill Owens, former party chairman Bruce Benson and University of Colorado president Hank Brown. Those heavy hitters outweighed the more numerous antitax Republican voices, including the current state House and Senate floor leaders, last year's legislative presiding officers--Lola Spradley and me--and GOP county chairmen. With Democrats unified behind the tax hike and Republicans bitterly divided over it, Tuesday's outcome had, in retrospect, a certain inevitability. ....

But to repeat, the people spoke. They're OK with all that money moving from their pockets into an unreformed bureaucracy that keeps on running school systems and road systems, prison systems and medical welfare systems in a 19th- or, at best, a mid-20th-century manner. A lot of them apparently just want to be taken care of, and never mind the details. At public forums during the campaign I was struck by the dependency mentality of so many people who showed up. "Have you no vision of community?" one woman scolded.

[goldstategop]

In Colorado, conservative Republicanism has devolved into acceptance of the Big Government mentality and an acquiescence to a spirit of dependency. The GOP has become everything it once opposed and in that spirit, Colorado's Republican Governor Bill Owens and the state's business community led the way to scuttling fiscal restraints. The Democrats were all for it of course but when you have Republicans behind a tax hike, its a watershed moment. Its a whole new era and both parties are pushing along to socialism in the Mountain West. The appeal of the rugged individual Westerner is now dated by recent events.

("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")

[GeronL]

Owens is no longer a contender if he ever was, for President.

Mark Sanford '08

[jec1ny]

Colorado has major financial problems. And while all the usual rhetoric about cutting spending sounds nice, there are some things that just need to be done by the gov't. I realize that FR is dominated by radical libertarians who hate government in all forms and taxes are regarded as the incarnation of evil in the modern world, but there was no way to bring Colorado's budget in line without either draconian cuts in services or raising taxes. I am an old fashioned Republican who believes that "debt" is a four letter word. No variation on the word "tax" comes out to four letters. This is a major reason I am appalled at the Republican Congress and the the current administration for their fiscal policies. They are creating a huge mess that they will be content to leave for the next president to clean up. This is the most non-conservative administration in a hundred years when it comes to spending and budgets. I love W's foreign policy. But I am horrified by his domestic policies.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

I realize that FR is dominated by radical libertarians who hate government in all forms and taxes are regarded as the incarnation of evil in the modern world

I realize that this is perhaps the silliest ad-hominem attack I've ever read.

[jec1ny]

"I realize that this is perhaps the silliest ad-hominem attack I've ever read."

Your opinion is noted.

[LibertarianInExile]

What has happened in Colorado is what has happened everywhere else at some point. More of the GOP hierarchy has simply been foolish enough to go along this time.

The process in a nutshell:
A) The government is well run with a low tax bite.
B) Big companies move there to take advantage thereof.
C) Big companies bring employees from other states that have big tax bites and commensurately larger government services.
D) Big companies become entrenched; their transient employees become entrenched and discuss with locals the things they missed about government services back home.
E) Government expands its tax bite and its "services" to i. protect the businesses that are entrenched and ii. respond to the transients and the fools that never ask the new residents WHY they LEFT such a government paradise in the first place.
F) Big companies begin search for a state like that in A, repeat process.

The only solution to the problem is to do what the Founders did, make it nigh impossible to grow government without a supermajority--except in the federal system, the Founders missed that a sonofabitch named Marshall could expand the power of the judiciary beyond all recognition of its intended power, which was probably to have been little more than that of the power of the British system. At least, I have yet to see any document from the FF that demonstrates the actual intention of the Founders was to empower justices with the ability to rewrite the Constitution.

Perhaps the only changes I would have made, were I in the shoes of those Founders, would have been to include a clause that explicitly limited the growth of government by requiring that all tax increases be approved by 100% of the states in order for it to be binding upon them, as the Constitution had to be. And of course, I'd have included a clause that more explicitly allowed states to leave the Union, since so many evidently thought it was Constitutionally appropriate to compel the "consent" of the governed in the South in forcing them to rejoin the Union.

To avert the Colorado problem, the first TABOR should have forced a Constitutional supermajority for its own REMOVAL. Colorado is doomed for some lean years. Californication sucks.

[LibertarianInExile]

As a radical libertarian, which things were needed to be done by the government in Colorado that simply couldn't be cut, pray tell?

[jec1ny]

From the point of view of many of those on FR, there is almost nothing except national defense and law enforcement that government can not cut spending on. The problem is that those on FR think they represent a majority view in the country. And we don't. (I say we even though I am not part of the radical libertarian wing). If you start cutting too deep your gonna have a revolt on your hands by the voters. And then we are in deep trouble with the Dems running things.

[LibertarianInExile]

I repeat the question I asked some moments ago: which things were needed to be done by the government in Colorado that simply couldn't be cut, pray tell?

[jec1ny]

Public safety, public education, environmental protection, corrections, college assistance... the list is long. All of these have already been deeply cut. As evidence of the point I made in a previous post the Republican majorities in the state legislature were soundly defeated in the last election because of the unpopularity of so many of these and other spending cuts. If your in office, you can cut what you like. But the issue then becomes how long will you remain in office. And once you leave how long will your budget cuts last?

[Jacquerie]

But the issue then becomes how long will you remain in office.

Most pol's first priority is to remain in office. I was against increasing the pay of our local commissioners for just that reason. With extra pay and gold plated health care and retirement, their jobs became like anyone else's. They must be protected at all costs.

That means pandering to the lowest common denominator of public opinion.

By the way, I cannot recall a revolt over smaller increases to college grants, homes for unwed mothers, school lunches, etc. However, history is replete with revolts over high taxes.

FreeRepublic is not a libertarian site. We are mostly conservative in nature and yes the country is majority conservative.

[palmer]

Public safety, public education, environmental protection, corrections, college assistance... the list is long. All of these have already been deeply cut.

Post-crime form filing, NEA (need I say more?), land grabbing and restrictions on land use, WOD filled prisons and support for tenured marxists. The list of government supported tyranny and incompetence is very long indeed. By the way, congratulations on not picking a latin screen name.

[kittymyrib]

Good...Texas will send more illegals to CO, since CO taxpayers don't mind paying the taxes to educate, medicate and incarcerate these parasites on the body politic. Thankew!

[Jack Black]

Responding to a question, Mehlman mentioned eight potential candidates for 2008: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Virginia Sen. George Allen, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, Arizona Sen. John McCain, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani - and Jeb Bush.

Horrible list, IMHO. We need to develop an alternate list that isn't full of RINOs and make it the "front runners". Lets not let the Dem Media define our race for us.

Pataki and Giuliani are far out of the Republican mainstream but media darlings who keep showing up on these lists. Jeb is simply unacceptable from a nepotism point of view. Those of us who are trying to advance Conservatism don't need the distraction of fighting off this charge for another four years.

I don't see the Red States supporting a Mass. Gov. It's in our blood to vote against them, and it's hard to believe a Gov of Mass is anything but a closet liberal (bet he's pro-choice and anti-gun BYE BYE).

McCain just seems like he has issues.

Allen, Owens - I don't know a lot about them but at least there is somebody on the list that's not a RINO.

I think the candidates need to get busy. The Ds are.

[jammer]

Bob Dole, call your office.

[Rodney King]

Your A-F summary is right on the mark!

[jammer]

Happens to small companies, also. We moved our company here a couple of years ago. Yesterday, I assigned a committee to find another state for us. *This* time, we'll look more closely at the longer term, but, in fairness to us, who would have thought two years ago that our Guv would become such an out-and-out traitor.

[Major Matt Mason]

Allen, Owens - I don't know a lot about them but at least there is somebody on the list that's not a RINO.

I think Owens safely falls into the RINO category at this time. I like Allen well enough, but he is a U.S. Senator, so who knows what he truly believes.

[mpreston]

Good summary. Just a few weeks back the Colorado Springs Gazette ran a series on public school reform and one of the items for discussion was a unified school district. The paper has a section for the public to comment and it was interesting to see people voice support for the concept. A unified school district would never have been considered 10 years ago.