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RTD should choose moving people over soaking taxpayers
The Regional Transportation District (RTD) now admits that bus-rapid transit is far more cost-effective than rail at attracting and carrying transit riders. In the Denver-Boulder (Northwest) corridor,...
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Colorado’s Amendment 66 income tax battle explained
A tidal wave crashed across Colorado on November 5. Unlike the real floodwaters that ravaged our state in September, the political tidal wave brought relief. Close observers were almost unanimously...
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‘Transportation Empowerment Act’ devolves power back to the states
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and two other senators and joined Representative Tom Graves (R-GA) and 18 other representatives in introducing the Transportation Empowerment Act. This bill would phase out most...
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Politicians pig out on federal gas taxes
The Framers drafted the Constitution to grant Congress some powers to construct infrastructure. For example, the Commerce Clause, as originally understood, grants authority to construct facilities for...
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A chance to devolve transportation money and authority back to the states
For decades, U.S. transportation policy has been stagnant. Because about half of gasoline taxes cycle through Washington, D.C., cost-sharing and benefits in transportation are distorted. A new bill...
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Less Than 0.7% of Boulder County Residents Sign Up For Obamacare
Of course, that’s not how the story plays in the Boulder Daily Camera: More than 2,100 Boulder County residents — nearly 10 percent of the total number statewide — have enrolled in health insurance...
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Will ‘City for Champions’ soak Colorado Springs taxpayers?
Attention citizens of Colorado Springs: Colorado Springs is no longer a low tax town! We have more than 80 special taxing districts within the boundaries of which residents and businesses pay higher...
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Food stamp usage in Colorado continues at all-time highs
The number of Colorado households and individuals obtaining assistance from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Plan (SNAP, also commonly known as food stamps) continues to mark all-time high...
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Guest Editorial: Kopp for Governor campaign
Editor’s note: this is one in a series of guest op-eds by candidates for Colorado Governor written for CompleteColorado.com. One of the toughest things I had to do as a leader in the Colorado Senate...
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Guest Editorial: Hess for Governor campaign
Editor’s note: this is one in a series of guest op-eds by candidates for Colorado Governor written for CompleteColorado.com. Dear Colorado, The good people at Complete Colorado asked me and other...
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Photocopy costs 10 cents or less, but governments still charge 25 cents for...
The cost of making a single photocopy does not exceed five to 10 cents for most government agencies. Yet most, if not all governments in Colorado, continue to charge the maximum fee allowed by law at...
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Special interest giveaways burden Colorado taxpayers, muddy tax code
Last fall, Colorado officials claimed a $1 billion tax increase was needed to save the state’s public schools. Voters did not approve the tax increase. If officials were telling the truth, one would...
View ArticleBlake: Aurora’s defense of crony capitalism
The city of Aurora suddenly finds itself having to fight a two-front war in defense of crony capitalism, for which there is no defense. The crony, in this case, is the Gaylord Hotel and Conference...
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Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Colorado TABOR lawsuit
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently refused to dismiss the suit by various public sector interests to invalidate Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). The plaintiffs claim...
View ArticleBlake: Not even new technologies can make an old tax go away
The Colorado legislature is working on an overhaul of the increasingly competitive telecommunications industry. But that doesn’t mean the historic subsidies for monopoly rural service are going away;...
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Confession of a Colorado use tax chump: I am the 0.08 percent
Warning: Do not read this article unless you, too, want to risk becoming a use tax chump, as I am. The use tax is perhaps the most violated law in Colorado. Hardly anyone even knows about it; far fewer...
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Blake: Aurora development still faces court fights, legislative battles
Aurora officials rejoiced loudly last week when Denver District Judge Norman Haglund rejected a lawsuit filed by numerous Denver hotels’ against the city’s proposed Gaylord Hotel and Conference Center....
View ArticleBlake: Freshen up bad legislation with a new coat of paint
Oblivious, as usual, to the lessons of history, the Colorado legislature has enacted a fee on household paint sales in order to subsidize the recycling or disposal of leftovers — even as it tries to...
View ArticleBlake: ObamaCare’s legislative shuffle couldn’t have happened in CO
Another lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare leads, in a roundabout way, to the conclusion that, compared to Congress, the Colorado legislature is a model of order, discipline,...
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Colorado’s above average income tax burden
Groups that depend on state tax money for their existence tend to claim that Coloradans are undertaxed. In a new release, the Tax Foundation calculates that Colorado was 24th in the amount of state and...
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