Art Laffer, the “Father of Supply-Side Economics”.
If you tax people who work and you pay people who don’t work, do not be surprised if you find a lot of people choosing not to work
Posted on 11/02/2005 6:56:38 AM PST by george76
("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")
This is the point noone managed to get over to the voters. When C was being formulated, the rats were asked, no begged, to insert provisions in C committing the funds to roads, bridges, schools etc. They allowed only a non-binding, wishy-washy, statement of intentions.
Of course, the reason they would not commit is that they control the legislature and have no intention of spending the money on sensible stuff. If they did, then they wouldn't have any reason to come back to the voters in a few years and ask for more money for roads, bridges, schools etc.
("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")
("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")
The fact is that Ref. C and D were actually addressing real problems that were in part caused by TABOR.
The correct thing to do is acknowledge that TABOR was a great start, but that we've learned some things about it since it was passed, and need to make some changes so that it works better. That will prevent things like C and D from getting traction in the future.
The incorrect thing to do is to whine about it, because that only plays into the Democrats' hands.
Colorado will now have another wave of liberals moving to Colorado for free housing, free food, free health insurance, free schools, cheap University tuition, paychecks for life, free...
About the only good election news from Colorado yesterday is that Ref D failed. That would have adopted the Calif method of financing--borrow now, pay later. That makes it a little more likely that the dems will spend some of the money in Ref C on infrastructure (Ref D would have funded a lot of construction). It also removes one of the drivers the rats have designed to gut TABOR even further by making interest payments (ala Calif) start sucking up more and more of the general fund.
If all that happens is stomping, you are right. We need to punish the R's who made this happen and take our party back. The only way they do not repeat this behavior over and over is if there are no consequences.
No, we don't need to "punish" the R's. That's nothing more than "stomping", and it helps nobody but the Democrats who'll replace them in the legislature.
The intelligent thing to do is to recognize that there are actual merits to both C and D, in that they address some actual problems with TABOR.
Rather than "punishing" your allies, and stomping off in a rage as you're planning to do, perhaps your energy would be better spent finding ways to improve TABOR, so that things like Ref. C can't get proposed in the first place.
From last year...
What the Hell Happened in Colorado?
Why Republicans held the state for Bush and lost everything else on the ballot.
by John Andrews
12/07/2004
RED-STATE JOHNNIE HAS THE BLUES. Times are hard for Colorado Republicans, these days. Yes, we again carried Colorado for President Bush. With a GOP voter-registration edge of 186,000, we darn well should have. But that was all we did. Down-ballot, this was the ugliest election for Colorado Republicans that I've experienced in my 30 years in politics. And as president of Colorado's state Senate, I saw the devastation up-close.
While Republicans were winning U.S. Senate races from Florida to Alaska, netting a four-seat gain, Colorado lost a seat the party has held since 1995, when Ben Nighthorse Campbell crossed the aisle following the Gingrich sweep. Senator-elect Ken Salazar heads to Washington as one of the Democrats' only bright spots--along with Barrack Obama of Illinois--in a bleak, 44-seat minority.
While Republicans were picking up five seats in the U.S. House, boosted by Texas' hard-fought redistricting victory last year, we lost a western Colorado seat that should have been safe.
And if this weren't enough, Colorado was the only state to suffer a bicameral switch of legislative control in the last election. Democrats won seven seats in the Colorado House, and one in the state Senate, to grab a majority in both chambers for the first time since 1960.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/006osifb.asp
At this point, I disagree. We need some peasants with pitchforks to get the attention of the folks who run this party. If they do not think there are consequences for what they have done to the party over the past 6 years, nothing will change.
Andrews article is right-on, but overly optimistic in retrospect. He did not anticipate the Rep establishment joining the opposition on their way out the door and taking our best, winning issue (low taxes) with them. It's going to be a long, slow crawl back out of the hole Owens, Anderson and their group have put us in.
Good point. Odds are, we have a rat for governor next year because of C, along with rat control of the judiciary and legislature, the legislature because of C. It's going to be a very, very long decade here in Colorado. It's not clear to me that it is fixable anytime soon.
Can we get Scott McInnis back to work?
Or is he lost forever?
His former employee as DA in Glenwood is getting recalled in a few weeks. Maybe she deserves it, but Scott has been very silent.
Scott also was useless in 2004 in his former state and federal races in his old seats. The point is not to hammer him endlessly, but to ask if he might return?
Is there another positive choice?
Raising money and expending time/energy now seems useless without any leaders who can represent our IDEAS.
Actually spending some time in the wilderness might do us some good. I have a poison pill theory about the governorship next year that is similar to what I posted before the recall of Gray Davis in CA. Simply put, the composition of the legislature is majority rat and a large contingent of RINOS--19 of our ostensible R legislators voted to put C and D on the ballot. The state is now officially ungovernable--the public employee unions hold the whip hand on all public policy issues.
If we win the governorship, the Denver Post and the News will blame the governor and not the parties actually responsible in the legislature. This is what has happened in CA to Schwartznegger. OTOH, if the rats have complete control, blame will go where it belongs.
The big downsides to that strategy are: (1) My beautiful state has to spend some serious time in the toilet; and (2) The rats will continue to have a complete lock on the Colo supreme court for decades; and (3) Redistricting in 2011 will make it almost impossible for R's to win the state back, even with a majority of the vote--eg we lost the legislature in 2004 even though we outpolled the rats in both house seats and senate seats statewide and that will only get worse in 2011.
Now I am glad I'll be moving to Utah.
Scott was done with DC : the professional politicians in DC, the weekly travel to and from DC, the jerky lobbyists in DC...
He did want and would have taken Campbell's Senate one term earlier. But by 2004, he was toast.
I think that road is done.
Maybe Governor of Colorado?
Art Laffer, the “Father of Supply-Side Economics”.
If you tax people who work and you pay people who don’t work, do not be surprised if you find a lot of people choosing not to work
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