'76 Blog

(Denver Post, Nov. 27) “Thanksgiving and Christmas 2011, now those were tough times. The House and Senate couldn’t agree on raising taxes.  Denver and Aurora couldn’t agree on the Stock Show. “Democrats couldn’t get excited about Obama.  Republicans couldn’t get excited about anyone. It was grim, I tell you.  Worse than 1933, with unemployment over 20%, Hitler and Stalin menacing Europe.  “Worse than 1942, with the world in flames, the Allies beset by Germany and Japan.  Worse than 1968, with assassinations, race riots, failed presidencies, antiwar marches.  “No, youngsters, none of those dark days compared with the year we lost Steve Jobs.  Elway was dissing Tebow.  Big Air was cancelled.  Black December, we called it.  Be grateful you weren’t born yet.”  Will Grandpa be narrating such melodrama by a Colorado fireside decades from now?  Hardly.  So why the long face?  We’ve survived worse than this.  Purpose and grit will get us through.  Coloradans have backbone.  Our best days are ahead, there’s no doubt of it. Yet four out of five Americans in a recent poll said the country is now in decline. Maybe we are beginning to see ourselves as a people that things happen to, rather than what we’ve historically been since Pilgrim times – a people who make things happen.  It’s a huge difference; and fortunately, it’s still our choice. Local reaction to failure of the congressional “supercommittee” to reach a deficit-reduction agreement, as reported last week by the Denver Post, portrayed Colorado as an almost helpless dependent of the federal budget.  The state will be a less desirable place to live in dozens of ways, one gathered, if spending growth slows down to keep America from a Greek-style fiscal collapse.  Woe is us.  The obvious rejoinder is twofold, it seems to me.  First, let’s have some perspective here.  Spending growth HAS to slow.  Barreling along on the current unsustainable path is not an option.  It would make all 50 of the states a worse place to live.  Second, since the budget binge is clearly ending, deal or no deal, let’s make a virtue of necessity and get busy positioning Colorado for greater economic self-sufficiency.  The time should come when we’re NOT a groveling client of the Beltway.  How about both parties in the legislature and the Hickenlooper administration vying to outdo each other on reforms toward that goal, come January? New Year’s confetti will hardly be swept up, of course, when presidential politics goes white-hot with caucuses and primaries, Colorado included.  Some say that movement on policy will then halt because of election-year posturing.  But considering our state’s particular leverage in the 2012 race, why do we have to accept that?  We’ll not only be a battleground state again as we were in 2008.  This time, Colorado could play the decisive role that Florida played in 2000.  Strategists on both sides have spun out scenarios in which our nine electoral votes tip the balance of 269 to elect the incumbent or the challenger.  (Lucky we stayed off the National Popular Vote bandwagon.) So we will have, to put it mildly, the respectful attention of both Obama and his opponent – Romney, Gingrich, or whoever – all the way to November.  As individual voters and especially through our organized groups, we should be thinking about what we want from them.  I don’t mean our selfish wants, but our agenda for the civic good, for America’s renewal. Our state is being paid yet another compliment, if you can call it that, as pundits left and right predict that the “fear and loathing” attack campaign Obama used to rescue Sen. Michael Bennet’s reelection here in 2010 will become his own national theme against the GOP in 2012.  If true, too bad.  Such scaremongering demeans our intelligence and our backbone.  Will Coloradans stand for it?  Stay tuned.

(Denver Post, Aug. 28) I wish Tom Tancredo was Governor of Colorado.  I wish Scott McInnis was.  Heck, I wish the ill-starred Dan Maes was governor.  Any Republican, any conservative, rather than the limousine liberal Democrat we’re stuck with, John Hickenlooper. Whence these idle fantasies?  Not heat stroke from recent egg-frying temperatures.  Not oxygen deprivation from my annual 14er climb.  No, it started when I found myself seated between Tancredo and McInnis at a GOP luncheon on Aug. 10, the anniversary of Scott’s shocking loss to Maes in last year’s gubernatorial primary. Tancredo, you remember, was so sure neither man could beat Hickenlooper that he demanded both quit – then bolted and ran as the American Constitution Party nominee.  The final numbers in a campaign most of us would like to forget were Hick 51%, Tank 37%, and Maes 11%.  Ouch. Someone said this luncheon was the first time Scott and Tom, formerly congressional colleagues, had seen each other since then. Nothing untoward occurred, and the occasion went in the file drawer of funny coincidences.  But that awful August flashback got me wondering whether our party has learned enough from its debacle in 2010 to count on carrying Colorado in 2012. My daydream of reclaiming the governorship isn’t on tap next year – perhaps just as well, since the GOP has lost five straight contests since 2004 for that seat and for U.S. Senate. So coloring the state a Republican red again in 14 months would mean winning the Colorado House and Senate, keeping or improving our 4-3 edge in congressional seats, and above all, delivering nine electoral votes against President Barack Obama. Can the Grand Old Party do that?  Part of the answer will depend on organizational and fundraising efforts by young state chairman Ryan Call, elected last winter after veteran chairman Dick Wadhams stood down.[1]  Part will depend on conservatives and moderates (like the two dozen ex-legislators from both camps at the luncheon) transcending our differences to unify in defeating Democrats. On those fronts, prospects seem good.  On others, however, work is needed.  After Call’s luncheon speech, Tancredo queried him about efforts on the right to match CoDA, the Colorado Democracy Alliance of nonprofit groups outside formal party ranks that has given the left such an advantage here in every cycle from 2004 to 2010.  Nobody claims that one is solved yet. A few days later, in a column for World Net Daily, Tancredo asked another tough but fair question: Do Republicans here and elsewhere really want to be “the party of constitutional liberty – or merely the ‘other’ party, the party of slower drift into socialism instead of the passionate embrace of socialism offered by the Obama Democrats”?  The Colorado House under GOP control this year, Tom went on to say, missed its opportunities for “connecting state Democrats to Obama’s policies” by offering a “coherent alternative” that would “reverse course” on such issues as health care, regulation, and taxes.  Speaker Frank McNulty, nursing a 33-32 majority, would doubtless disagree.  But there’s a case to be made that voters will need to see more evidence of a rising red tide in policy under the Gold Dome next January if they are to move the state out of the blue column next November. Then there’s the Tea Party.  Dan Maes, hapless novice that he was, turned the best phrase of 2010 in pleading to “introduce the institution to the revolution” and thus cement a Colorado conservative majority.  Wrong messenger, right message.  Maes told me last week he sees Chairman Call and other Republicans making progress on allying with this potent new force for freedom and responsibility.  Will it work? “The jury is out,” said Dan.  On such an alliance, more than any other factor, the red-state hopes for 2012 will turn. [1] The column as published in the Denver Post erroneously stated that Call's candidacy "moved... Wadhams to retire." In fact, however, Wadhams dropped his bid for another term prior to Call's entering the chairman's race.  I regret the misstatement.

(Denver Post, Jan. 9) “Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there.  He wasn’t there again today.  I wish, I wish he’d go away.”  The little poem from a century ago should haunt Colorado’s new governor and legislature as they climb the Capitol steps and set to work this week. John Hickenlooper is shrewdly adding Republicans as well as fellow Democrats to his cabinet, but no one has been appointed from the Tea Party.  Speaker Frank McNulty, reclaiming a GOP majority for the first time since 2004, will preside over a House of 33 R’s, 32 D’s, and no T’s.  Senate President Brandon Shaffer enjoys an opposite and more comfortable margin of 20 D’s, 15 R’s, and again, zero T’s. So what?  This is our state’s two-party system in the same seesaw of power we’ve known since 1876 – politics as usual.  These are politically unusual times, however.  The men and women who aren’t there under the gold dome in 2011, but whom our elected leaders can’t afford to ignore, are the Tea Party insurgents of the past two years. Fewer than half of Colorado’s eligible voters turned out last November.  The half that stayed home were not all Tea Partiers, of course.  T’s came out in large numbers to help Republicans take the state House, unseat two Democrats from Congress, and support Tom Tancredo or Dan Maes for governor.  Yet the fact remains that as campaigning now gives way to governing, T’s have no formal seat at the table.  So it’s insiders beware.   The late Bill Buckley allowed LBJ only about a week in office before announcing in his magazine: “National Review’s patience with the Johnson administration is exhausted.”  The Tea Party, a movement of hard-working Americans fed up with over-spending and over-government, is THAT impatient with politicians of both parties.  You can imagine them sending Valentines such as these to the power-brokers at 200 E. Colfax: “Dear Gov. Hickenlooper:  No doubt you’re a good guy to have a beer with, though the motor scooter is a bit effete.  But for now, forget the image stuff, park your presidential ambitions, and get the economy roaring again.  Go after the unions and the spenders like you were Chris Christie.  We’re dying out here.  Love, Adams County.” “Dear President Shaffer:  What’s with you proposing to make it harder for us to change the state constitution?  The constitution belongs to us, not to you and the other suits.  Try reading it on opening day, the way Congress did.  Then try again on fixing PERA, before it bankrupts the state.  Respectful but steamed, Grand Junction.” “Dear Speaker McNulty: You must have been quoted wrong about not repealing Ritter’s car tax, that outrageous affront to TABOR.  When one of your members said the revenue is needed, you woodshedded him, right?  Can a couple hundred of us come see you in the Old Supreme Court some afternoon?  Patriotically, Pueblo.” “Dear Senate Minority Leader Mike Kopp: Please fire up your caucus to fight harder than last year against the Obama transformation agenda on things like energy and health care.  The GOP is Colorado’s best hope of not turning into California or Greece, but if you don’t show us more, a bunch of us are outta here. Worried in Widefield.” “Dear House Minority Leader Sal Pace: Ouch, a few dozen votes in the Ramirez race and you could have been Speaker.  For 2012, instead of lurching left with labor, why not become a fiscal hawk, a Dick Lamm-style Democrat?  We can be had. Available in Arvada.” Government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.  So said Reagan 30 years ago this month, and the Tea Party believes it is even truer today.  If Colorado’s bipartisan establishment doesn’t pay heed, it will pay dearly.    

('76 Contributor) I have often wondered what propels the Douglas County economy and enables it to be the 8th most affluent and highly educated county in the United States. Many believe that the engine of growth was real estate development or big box retailing. Maybe, but a recent project I managed suggests a labor force concentrated in the health care field is the real underlying strength of the local economy. Over the past two months I have been organizing the State of Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agency's lists of licensed health providers into a computerized data base and it has led to some startling revelations. The magnitude and velocity of growth in the far south suburban area over the past 30 years boggles the mind. In 1965, a 20-foot wall of water rushed down from the Palmer Divide through both Plum and Cherry creeks and wiped a clean slate through the County all the way to the South Platte River. By 1976, sod farms had replaced cattle grazing and there were all of 4800 telephones listed in a Castle Rock phone book that also included Elbert County. The 1976 death of Gerald Phipps, owner of Highlands Ranch and the place for James Michener's book Centennial, also set the stage for Mission Viejo, later Shea, to develop a planned community. In reviewing the 1976 phone book you could count all the doctors, dentists and pharmacists in the area on the fingers of both your hands. Douglas County, according to the latest Census Bureau American Community Survey now has a labor force of 151,000 and a total population of over 270,000. At 14%, the health care workforce is slightly more than 21,000 workers ranging from physicians to therapists . But, the impact on the economy is far greater since thousands of Front Range health care workers live in Douglas County and commute into the urban core. My assessment of the economic impact of health care suggests it has now become the economic engine of Douglas County for the 21st Century. The median household income in Douglas County is over $100,000. In Denver that number is only $44,000 and in rural Costilla County in the San Luis Valley, where settlement first occurred in Colorado median household income is a mere $19, 500. The building of three major hospitals in the southern suburbs over the past ten years--Littleton, Sky Ridge and Parker Adventist, has come at a time when hospitals in the urban core, such as Children’s, University, and the VA have also pulled up stakes and left for the suburbs. Mercy Medical Center closed and all the remaining hospitals in Denver are left with deteriorating demographic and the need to rebuild their facilities. From that original baker’s dozen of health care providers back in 1976, Douglas County has grown to where it has now has over 800 physicians and P.A.s, 300 Dentists, 600 pharmacists and nearly 1,000 occupational, physical, massage and respiratory therapists. There may be as many as 5,000 nurses and 3,000 mental health workers living in the area. By the year 2020, I estimate there will be nearly 100,000 health care workers in the suburban corridor ring south and east of the boundaries of the City of Denver. The shift in demographics and the growth of health care as a suburban industry has devastating consequences for Denver as a city. Denver seems to have irreversibly lost health care and the suburbs have gained. Francis M. Miller is the past vice chairman of the Colorado Health Data Commission and a health economist. In 2011 he will publish a Colorado Health Care Atlas of his findings from this project. You can watch its development on www.healthsmartco-op.com.    

 ('76 Editor) My column yesterday, two posts below this one, didn't have room for several important quotes from sources I talked to.  I will add them here.  First, as a valuable reference, don't miss Isaac Smith's comprehensive bibliography of published material about the Colorado Democracy Alliance and related groups. It's a sort of election transparency primer, which Smith has authorized Centennial Institute to release for the first time. Election Transparency - A Primer Naturally I approached Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer, since they literally wrote the book on this whole thing.  Schrager declined to comment for the record, other than referring me to a buzz in the left blogosphere last month about what is being called "the Western Firewall," a Democrat-saving difference from the Rockies to the Pacific.  But when I put this question to Witwer -- "How did the 2010 election results verify or modify your analysis of new political realities as presented in The Blueprint"? -- he replied as follows: The 2010 elections show that all the advertising in the world doesn't add up to much if the infrastructure isn't there to support it.  Campaign finance reform all but killed political parties, and the infrastructure they once provided is now being outsourced to nonprofit organizations.  Colorado Democrats figured that out earlier, and have implemented it more effectively, than their GOP counterparts. Here in Colorado, Democrats withstood the national tidal wave and saved the top two prizes: the U.S. Senate and Governor's seats.  They also held on to their majority in the state Senate.  2010 was never going to be a good year for Colorado Democrats, but with superior infrastructure and a relentless ground game, they minimized their losses -- and pulled off an upset or two in the process.   To win in the twenty-first century, you need a thriving network of nonprofits to build the kind of infrastructure necessary to sustain a succesful political movement. All the TV ads in the world won't help if your side doesn't have a political infrastructure in place.  TV just isn't enough anymore, and heavy spending on ads quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns.  To win, you need a network of coordinated groups to provide a social media presence, thorough opposition research, a campaign of non-stop pressure on the mainstream media, databases full of detailed information on voters, and an army of door-to-door vote-getters. On the CoDA side, mastermind Mike Huttner would not go on record either, asking me to work instead with Kjersten Forseth, who recently took over for him as interim executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, the granddaddy of all infrastructure groups.  I'll quote my exact query as put to her by phone and then by email, to show how specific I was inviting her to be -- and then her admirably robotic, terse and utterly uninformative reply.  These people are drilled! Andrews: On page 208 of "The Blueprint" by Schrager and Witwer, they quote Mike Huttner as saying: "I believe Colorado's progressive infrastructure will work as a buttress [against] the potential tidal wave against Democrats in November."  So my question to you is, did that indeed occur to the benefit of Bennet, the state Senate, and the Perlmutter race?  If so, what specifically provided the benefit?  And what role did the progressive infrastructure play in bringing to light McInnis's problems, thus throwing the GOP nomination to Maes? Forseth: ProgressNow Colorado had a very successful year exposing candidates' extreme positions and actions. ProgressNow cut though the political rhetoric and backpedaling so voters were able to make informed decisions about their candidates. Mark Hillman, the former state senator and treasurer who is now Colorado's Republican National Committeeman, had this to say:   The recent election verified that CODA is invested for the long-haul.  Just as they seek to maximize Democrat gains in favorable years, their strategy is to minimize Democrat losses in unfavorable elections, like 2010.  CODA had far more influence on the 2010 election than either the Democrat or Republican state parties.  Wealthy Democrats, labor unions and trial lawyers are committed for the long-haul and it's paying off.  Republicans can't be competitive year in and year out unless business leaders and wealthy donors are willing to make that same commitment. Finally, an experienced GOP player and observer, speaking on background, reinforced much of what Hillman and Witwer had said, when he wrote to me as follows: At the statewide level, we remain too dependent upon an impotent, irrelevant State Party for basic functions and messaging.  The Dems abandoned their Party a decade ago and ran everything through the unions and interest groups. If you ask a high-level Dem when was the last time that the Democratic Party ran its own GOTV effort, he'll say they never did.  It was always the unions.  But it's notable that our state legislative leadership made gains for the past two cycles (net +1 in 2008 and +7 in 2010).  The House has done particularly well, gaining 8 seats since 2008.  That kind of success for the Dems from 2000-2004 was national news, but our gains are practically unreported in comparison.  The bottom line is that it took us 4 years to figure out how the Dems play in legislative races post-Amendment 27, and now our House leaders know what to do to be successful and have shown repeated success for the first time in over a decade. By comparison, it seems Senate leaders still have some learning to do.  They aren't raising as much money, they are in-fighting, and they spread their money too thinly over five districts.  McNulty, enroute to becoming Speaker-elect, raised the money, and only invested in a race when he knew he had enough money to fully compete.     

Colorado's second straight year of inevitable cuts in state aid to education can become an opportunity to improve learning performance while shedding needless costs, according to a policy brief from the Centennial Institute, Colorado Christian University's think tank.  The paper is online here: Centennial Policy Brief No. 2010-2 "Much Better Schools on Much Lower Budgets: A Primer for Colorado Policymakers" draws on proven models for achieving more with less, from schools across the country and around the world.  "Our state has massive cost inefficiencies and educational deficiencies within the structure of K-12 education, built up over decades and crying out for correction," says the author. Over $1 billion must be cut from projected spending in order to balance the 2011-2012 budget.   Students in neighboring Utah, the paper points out, significantly outperform Colorado students on the respected NAEP test, even though Utah's spending per pupil is only 61 cents on the dollar compared to Colorado's.  Denver parochial schools succeed better with minority youngsters than nearby public schools, at just 55 cents on the dollar. Looking abroad, we see education systems from Canada to Korea to Germany far exceeding the United States in academic achievement at 30% lower cost. The paper is organized in Q&A format around 20 concise topics, starting with "Admit: The US trails woefully in global rankings," running through "See why the teaching profession has faltered" and "Realize school funding is bloated, not starved," and concluding with recommendations to "Legislate boldly in 2011." William J. Moloney, former Colorado Education Commissioner with a lifetime of school experience in a half-dozen other states and countries, authored the policy brief in consultation with a panel of educators, legislators, and budget experts.  "It is in our power to fix what is broken; all that's needed is the political will," Moloney writes in the introduction. "There will never be a more opportune moment to break out of the old paradigm." He calls on the General Assembly to reinterpret Amendment 23's factor formulas in line with budget realities; offer local school districts a timeout from costly mandates, accreditation, and testing; allow schools to outsource many functions; encourage charters, vouchers, and tax credits; and defuse PERA's "pension time bomb." John Andrews, director of the Centennial Institute, says in an editor's note that when Moloney warned some weeks ago about Colorado public education becoming one of several "metastasizing entitlements that have reached a point of absolute unsustainability," defenders of the education status quo replied in print with emotion, not logic.  They deemed the former commissioner's analysis "offensive to educators" -- without attempting to refute it factually.  (Denver Post, Oct. 3 and Oct. 14, 2010.) In releasing the policy brief today, Andrews commented: "Centennial Institute and Bill Moloney will be working actively with legislators of both parties to help translate this new paradigm into budgetary solutions.  With or without cooperation from teacher unions and the education lobby, the state's dire fiscal condition is forcing policymakers to think way outside the box -- and that's good news for ill-served Colorado schoolchildren."     

('76 Contributor) Bipartisanship is greatly overrated as a formula for good government. Every major government boondoggle in recent memory was launched with bipartisan enthusiasm. Bipartisanship has its role in the day-to-day affairs of government. What separates genuine  bipartisanship from bogus bipartisanship is one thing: honesty. In Congress or any state legislature, it is normal for hundreds of bills to be passed with bipartisan support because much of government consists of making adjustments or improvements in ongoing programs that have broad public support. When dealing with the core functions of government, we seldom see sharp divisions along party lines. But what we see today is a different thing. Bipartisanship is being urged on Republicans not as a "let's split the difference" compromise for a specific bill but as a principle for shaping the very definition of the problem to be solved. For example, if Republicans agree that the problem to be solved in a budget crisis is a "shortfall in revenues," then the compromise solution will inevitably be some level of tax increases to make up the "shortfall." This then becomes a debate over how to finance the growth of government, not how to reduce the size of government. The Republican Party won victories in congressional and state races by promising to roll back Obamacare and other expansions of government. If they now squander those victories by abandoning the small-government agenda, they will deserve the scorn and ridicule of not only tea-party activists but concerned citizens everywhere. In Colorado, the state now has a liberal Democratic governor-elect, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, and a split legislature. Republicans are in the majority in the House and Democrats control the Senate. In this situation, neither party can control the legislative agenda. The question conservatives in Colorado are asking is: Will the legislative agenda become truly "bipartisan," or will Republicans be maneuvered into debating the details of compromises on the Democratic agenda? To have a chance at genuine compromise and honest bipartisanship, Republicans must first have an agenda of their own. When leading Colorado Republicans like former Gov. Bill Owens join the Democratic governor-elect's transition team, that serves to give the Democrats' agenda a patina of "bipartisanship" at the outset. When the Democratic agenda is baptized a "bipartisan agenda" on Day 1, by not only the liberal media and interest groups but by a group of co-opted Republicans, legislators who don't buy into that agenda can be easily stigmatized as "partisan obstructionists." Selling out your party's platform and policy agenda before the first shot is fired is a form of pre-emptive compromise that ought to be called by its right name: surrender. It is not bipartisanship in search of genuine solutions; it is gamesmanship in search of favorable press clippings. Such behavior may be acceptable to "party elders" who are accountable to no one, but it is not acceptable for elected representatives sent to the capitol to tackle tough problems and seek real solutions based on constitutional principles. As other conservative leaders have observed, Big Government is on autopilot and programmed for a crash. Republicans need to find the off switch.  Government needs a fundamental change in direction, not a spare fuel tank. In Colorado, for example, Republicans in the state legislature would be smart to offer their own agenda as quickly as possible and not wait for the Democrats' "partnership" agenda, which will validate the status quo and seek "innovative" and "creative" (read: deceptive) ways to finance the continued growth of government. They could start with proposing a voucher system for public schools, adoption of the federal E-verify program for denying jobs to illegal aliens, a 10 percent across-the-board reduction in each state agency's budget except transportation, and phasing out state support for the state university system. The clock is running out for the Republican Party. If they do not begin delivering on their promises, the grass-roots citizens' rebellion that swept them into office will find another vehicle for restoring constitutional liberties. In football terms, it is the middle of the fourth quarter, the score is Big Government 24, Small Government 3, and a field goal is not an acceptable play call. Tom Tancredo is a former five-term congressman from Colorado, 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and 2010 independent candidate for governor. He currently serves as chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation and co-chairman of TeamAmericaPac. Tancredo is the author of "In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security."  This article first appeared on WorldNetDaily.com, Nov. 13

On Friday evening, CCU political science students, as well as Centennial Institute Director John Andrews and Professor Gregory Schaller, attended an event at the Douglas County Events Center keynoted by radio host Hugh Hewitt and Former George W. Bush senior advisor Karl Rove. Making appearances amongst the peaks of their campaigns were Colorado congressional candidates Stephen Bailey (CD-2), Scott Tipton (CD-3), Cong. Doug Lamborn (CD-5), and Cong. Mike Coffman (CD-6). In an effort to stump for candidates in highly competitive races, Rove tied their Democratic opponents to the “Unholy Trinity” (Pelosi, Reid, Obama), and the imminent danger facing the United States should their failed policies take effect sans repeal. The evening was energized upon the ‘Republican Wave’ that has now advanced into the most prominent battleground state of the West.  With outside ‘527’ organizations spending record breaking amounts of funds on the Colorado senatorial and congressional races of 2010, Rove and Hewitt’s presence to invigorate a hopeful GOP audience could not have been more pertinent. With three House races, a US Senate seat, and the Gubernatorial race hinging on conservative and independent prevalence at the booths on November 2, Rove and Company urged Coloradans to spend the final days (or the 96 hours, as Hewitt called them, citing his visits to the state on each pre-election weekend since 2002) campaigning incessantly until the finish line has been crossed. With each candidate providing a brief oration as to why they should be elected in their respective race, Hewitt proceeded by interviewing them and discussing with each the pressing issues facing Colorado voters in this election. This forum styled interrogation provided the audience a deeper look into the heart of each candidate’s views and beliefs on reform currently impacting Colorado. Scott Tipton spoke of restoring jobs to farmers and ranchers, while Coffman boldly encouraged Coloradans to cast their vote for Governor with third-party candidate Tom Tancredo. In their final attempt to leave a sustaining impact on voters, each candidate spoke candidly on key legislation and solutions that they aspire to bring to public office come January. In the brief time allotted to his keynote address, Rove spoke with the intensity and vigor that has attracted millions of Americans across the country toward his movement. From touching on eight years of experiences in the White House to speaking on the future of the 2012 Presidential election, Rove’s rhetoric maintained a comfortable, yet stimulating viewpoint that harbored a great impact upon the audience. His thesis expressed that while many individuals label this midterm election as “the most important election since 1860”, the true battle begins on November 3, when Americans embark on the mission of defeating President Barack Obama in 2012. The audience reaction was nonetheless parallel, erupting with thunderous roars of approval to the charges that he continuously presented. With a night that will not be forgotten by CCU students and staff, this evening only solidifies the progression that the political science department has undertaken to energize and excite the students of Colorado Christian University. An opportunity to hear from two of the most prominent conservative voices in the nation, we are exceedingly blessed as a University to sustain the privilege of attending a prestigious gathering such as this. I thank the Lord again and again for the leadership of John Andrews and President Bill Armstrong, as their passion for developing politically disposed students is cultivating an intellectual and inspired student body.    

('76 Contributor) What could a Colorado family of four do with an additional $300 a month? Should taxpayers be able to keep more of their hard-earned money? Will that help create jobs and business? Do Colorado citizens deserve to have more money left over after deductions and taxes -- to spend, save, invest or give away? Do you? [Editor: This post advocating the three tax measures is a counterpoint to Mark Hillman's recent post opposing them.  Centennial Institute never takes an official position for or against ballot proposals, candidates for public office, or pending legislation.] Opponents of Amendments 60 and 61, and Proposition 101 have flooded the media “infosphere” by raising $6,863,021 (how much from out of state?) as reported by the Secretary of State, with $102,418.76 left (as of the October 18, 2010 report). Wow. Not surprisingly, many contributions are taxpayer dollars fighting taxpayers. Check out “Opposition Funding” at www.COtaxreforms.com . See who contributed and how much. Then ponder “WHY?” Who are these opponents, surprisingly many from out-of-state, who have spent in excess of $6.76 million for sinful excess of TV, radio, newspaper, road and yard signs, badges, bumper stickers, plus public-influencing strategies and expertise being expended? It is the ephemeral opponent organization, Coloradans for Responsible Reform. Have they ever reformed anything, rather instead, obstructing citizen initiatives that seek to contain government growth, power, spending, debt and taxation? When there’s an issue they’re there; when not, they’re not. 1. The flip side of these issues provides great promise for Colorado’s people and future, in a custom-designed, long-range stimulus strategy for building Colorado’s true prosperity. It will help create more jobs, housing, businesses, product and service output; while ensuring a growing avalanche of revenues for Colorado governments, with concurrent diminishing need for them. 2. The opposition tells how passage of 60, 61, 101 will reduce Colorado governments funding by $4.4 billion, that’s $4,400 million. With five million population, that’s about $880 per capita, or almost $3,600 for a family of four. What can happen when that family has an additional $300 a month to spend, save, invest or give away? And taking into account the vagaries of replacing it, they have to earn some $400 a month to regain that amount after taxes. 3. Revisit some basic economics. Etch these four-words on the inside of your left eyelid, “Only people pay taxes”; the right eyelid, “Businesses pay no taxes.”  All revenues, fees, taxes, etc., to finance jobs and functions in the public (government) sector come only from the private sector -- business, commerce, industry.  Businesses collect required taxes in their prices of goods and services, and by law pay them to the various governments. A prosperous, burgeoning private sector will pour tons of funds into governments. 4. Speaking of Colorado governments, how many are there? Colorado’s Department of Local Affairs tallies 3,305 (http://dola.colorado.gov/dlg/local_governments/lgtypes.html , 10/23/10). With 2,860 governments in 2006 (Independence Institute Backgrounder IB-2007-F, August 2007, page 1), Colorado governments are growing an average rate of one additional government every four days. And they all demand a piece of the diminishing people tax pie. How much government and how many governments are enough? 5. Do those who believe in Colorado’s economic, business, governmental, constitutional and legal system forget they can get all the tax revenues they need? Protected by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, all they have to do is ask for it. Determine that incoming revenues are insufficient to provide the necessary services, make the case and take it to the voters for approval. Example, state gasoline taxes have not been increased since 1994. Is it possible, even probable such a public vote on a five-, ten- or more cent-increase would pass? 6. Do Coloradans already pay significant taxes? 2009 Economic Report of the President data show that per capita federal taxes for 2008 were $8,275; Colorado, $2,984 (from Colorado 2009 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report), for a total of $11,259 taxes per capita -- federal, state-and-local taxes, direct and mostly indirect.  7. By way of comparison, in merry olde England, serfs (near-slaves?) paid one-third the fruits of their labor to the Manorial Lord for his protection and use of his land. Again, same 2009 ERP data, based on personal income, federal receipts were 20.2%, state, 16.1% for a total of 36.4% (total governments spending were 41.9% of personal income). 8. Government employment growth from 2002 to 2009 in Colorado was 9.1% compared to the private sector’s 7.3%. At the state level, total full time equivalent employees, FTEs, in seven years, grew 11.3% -- 6,561 -- 728 classified, state personnel system; 5,833 non-classified, Judicial, Legislative, Governor, Law, Education and Higher Education Departments. At the 2008 average annual Colorado FTE salary, benefits and perquisites of over $87,000, a million dollars annual State expenditure amounts to about 11.5 state employees. 9. Virtually all this 60,61,101 opposition fundraising, negative publicity and promotion is part of the continuing effort to emasculate, defang and destroy Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. How good has TABOR been? A study of the 10-years before TABOR and 10-years after convincingly makes the point. 10. For the 10-years before TABOR, Colorado all-government employment grew 21.1% (50,000), non-government employment 17.5% (198,000). For the 10-years after TABOR, all-government growth dropped to 20.0% (59,600); non-government growth more than doubled to 37.7% (526,400). (See “A Decade of TABOR,” Issue Paper No. 8-2003, page 7, http://old.i2i.org/articles/tabor2003.PDF ). 11. In 1992 Colorado’s Governor said if TABOR passed he would have to post signs at Colorado’s borders, “Colorado is Closed for Business.” A County Sheriff I debated told the audience if it passed he would have to don his uniform, let most of his deputies go, and let jailed persons back out on the street. TABOR passed by over 53% in 1992. Did the signs go up? Did their dire predictions come to pass? Do the scare tactics sound familiar? 12. TABOR implementation began in 1993. In 1994 Colorado was judged to be the number one, best state in the nation, in business and economic performance. This was routinely reported in the “Development Report Card for the States,” published annually by the Washington DC-based, non-profit Corporation for Enterprise Development. 13. Colorado continued number one in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 -- six consecutive years. Could it be that as the establishment power structure continued to whittle away, dilute and destroy TABOR, its business and economic good began to go away. 14. Amendments 60 and 61, and Proposition 101 are a magnificent gift to the people and future of Colorado, a great and growing stimulus package that will reset Colorado government and get it back on track. 15. If you do not want continuing high unemployment,  higher taxes, more governments, bigger government, that gets more expensive, expansive, wasteful, intrusive, invasive, powerful and controlling of Colorado citizens, voters and taxpayers:  Vote FOR 60, 61 and 101

(CCU Faculty) In a political race that’s been too much under the radar, CU Board of Regents member Steve Bosley is running for statewide re-election, challenged by CU law school prof, Melissa Hart. This race will shape the board that governs the University of Colorado, and the main subject of political dispute is, well, politics, and whether it has any place in higher education. [Editor: This article first appeared in the Denver Post, Oct. 20 online edition.] Hart seems to want it both ways: She insists that politics be kept out of education, yet she brings to the CU regents a kind of self-serving politics—she’s employed by the public institution she wants to govern—that betrays the public trust.    In a recent radio interview, Hart suggested that Bosley and other regents should focus “not on politics,” while congratulating herself for being “less tied to politics.” But to suggest that politics should or even can be removed from education is silly. The choice “we the people” make to offer public university education for our children is a profoundly political choice. It’s a choice regarding the character of our future citizens, that we want them educated, not ignorant. Trying to take politics out of education—maybe limiting courses to science and math?—is itself a political decision to leave future citizens ignorant of their country and the principles of political self-government. Politics always informs education. The question is what kind of politics: the politics of freedom required by citizens of a limited, constitutional government? Or some other politics? The story of two men familiar with politics and higher education might be of benefit to candidate Hart. Thomas Jefferson and his longtime friend James Madison believed that founding the University of Virginia was among the most important things either had done (it’s one of only three accomplishments Jefferson wanted inscribed on the obelisk above his grave). They both agreed that within the University, the most important part offered instruction in law and politics, subjects befitting the best citizens. While debating which texts would constitute the norma docendi for the UV law faculty, Jefferson wanted to include the Declaration of Independence, which he identified as “the fundamental act of Union,” and The Federalist Papers as the authoritative explanation of the U.S. Constitution and “its genuine meaning.” Madison agreed, but, he advised his old friend, “the most effectual safeguard against heretical intrusions into the school of politics will be an able and orthodox professor.” The meaning of any text can be perverted. More important are professors who are “able” and “orthodox,” who understand and are excellent teachers of the self-evident truths of the Declaration and the “genuine meaning” of the Constitution. Fast forward to today. Recently the CU regents adopted new “guiding principles” that call for “political diversity” to be included among the typical college campus diversities of skin colors, sexual orientations, etc. But Hart dissents from the idea of political diversity at CU. Diversity is fine, apparently, so long as it’s monolithically leftist politically. But if political diversity troubles Hart’s liberal heart, what might she think of Madison’s criteria for university faculty appointments? What was orthodoxy for Madison must be heresy for Hart. While Hart rejects the sound political education advanced by Jefferson and Madison and gently welcomed by Bosley and other CU regents, she’s not apolitical. Rather, hers is a brand of self-serving politics that no politician openly supports, at least not since the days of divine-right kings. She wants to sit in judgment of her own case: Hart wants to serve as a CU regent while employed as a CU law prof! How might she rule on possible salary reductions or class size increases? How will she handle a conflict with the CU President, who works at the pleasure of the Board of Regents, but who is a boss in part for the faculty? How could she claim even a hint of objectivity regarding such issues? Clearly Hart is reluctant to disturb the dominant left-wing politics at CU, yet perhaps some credit is due her. Her self-serving politics of Hartism certainly differs from the Marxism, feminism, multiculturalism, deconstructionism, and relativism that typically dominate the politics of higher education. Diversity, indeed.