'76 Blog

  When Gov. John Hickenlooper announced that the state will appeal a Denver court’s ruling that the state inadequately funds education, he acknowledged what Judge Sheila Rappaport — and previously the Colorado Supreme Court — would not:  money is a finite resource, even when it’s spent on worthy causes and when it’s spent by government. The state legislature allocates $4.3 billion to educate more than 800,000 students — just under $6,500 each — in K-12 public schools.  According to the Colorado Department of Education, other sources bring that total to a statewide average of nearly $13,000, as of 2009-10. Over two years ago, the supreme court ruled, in a contentious 4-3 decision, that a lower court should entertain claims brought by a group of parents and school districts that the state constitution’s call for a “thorough and uniform” system of free public schools should be interpreted to require a specific funding amount. That lawsuit, Lobato vs. Colorado, reverted back to Rappaport’s courtroom, albeit with instructions that “the trial court must give substantial deference to the legislature’s fiscal and policy judgments.” Rappaport’s decision, however, offered no such deference.  Her ruling reads like a brief for the plaintiffs — not like a judgment that gives even a modicum of respect to the legislature’s constitutional authority to fund public schools or, more broadly, to adopt a state budget. She condescendingly dismissed the state’s arguments, while fawning over various creative claims and tendentious documents provided by the Lobato plaintiffs, leading to these incredible conclusions: * “[T]he entire system of public school finance . . . is not rationally related to the mandate of the Education Clause.” * “There is not one school district that is sufficiently funded.” * “Current economic conditions . . . have made an unworkable situation unconscionable.  But Colorado’s history of irrational and inadequate school funding goes back over two decades.” If irrationality is a disqualifier, then Rappaport’s decision is on thin ice. For example, she consults the dictionary to accurately define “rational,” “irrational” and “relationship” because the Supreme Court used those terms in remanding the case.  She does not, however, provide that same level of analysis to ascertain what Colorado’s founders intended when wrote, “[T]he general assembly shall . . . provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state . . .” (emphasis added). Because “thorough” and “uniform” appear in the state constitution — unlike “rational,” “irrational” and “relationship” — a judge seeking to objectively apply the law might want to know if those terms dictate a necessary and quantifiable level of spending.   Of course, they do not.  An earlier supreme court said, “We are unable to find any historical background to glean guidance regarding the intention of the framers.” Rappaport adopts the Lobato plaintiffs’ argument that, because lawmakers have implemented a means of measuring schools’ and students’ performance against quantifiable expectations, the state is obligated to radically increase funding, perhaps to nearly double current levels. Her ruling rests on the plaintiffs’ creative assertion that a specific funding mandate is created by the convergence of standards and assessments, the constitution’s “thorough and uniform” clause, and the constitutional stipulation that local school boards control instruction. She never mentions “emanations and penumbras,” but clearly Judge Rappaport, like judicial activists before her, is blessed with a rare talent entrusted to only a select cadre of law school graduates — the ability to interpret words that aren’t there. In a final flurry of irrationality, Rappaport strikes down the state’s school finance law and orders a new system of funding, but she concludes the order by allowing this “inadequate,” “irrational,” “unconscionable” finance system to continue, pending further action by the Supreme Court. In announcing the state’s appeal, Gov. Hickenlooper observed: “There are more appropriate venues (than a courtroom) for a vigorous and informed public debate about the state’s spending priorities.” Yes, and, more rational, too. Mark Hillman served as Colorado treasurer and senate majority leader. He is now a Centennial Institute Fellow and Colorado's Republican National Committeeman. To read more or comment, go to www.MarkHillman.com. 

(CCU Faculty) President Obama’s proposal to increase taxes by 1.5 trillion over the next 10 years in the name of “fairness” is merely a smokescreen for increasing revenue to temporarily maintain what is ultimately unsustainable government spending.  As many conservatives have stated: “we don’t have a revenue problem; it’s a spending crisis.”  A massive tax increase is not the solution to this problem. President Obama is of the opinion that if he can just get some more money from America’s rich people, he can continue to spend at the record pace he directed from the beginning of his administration.  He is also of the opinion that the government has greater wisdom when it comes to people’s money, greater than the very people who earned it.   He is convinced that if government directs the economy, it will lead to a reduction in American unemployment.  There are three major problems with Obama’s view of economics and his plan to reduce the deficit: First, even if he could obtain all of the capital of America’s wealthy people, it would only temporarily suspend our deficit spending.  Andrew Stiles at National Review Online summarizes the limited impact that even a 100% tax on our nation’s millionaires or even a complete confiscation of the wealth of nation’s 400 wealthiest citizens would have: (1) The federal government will spend about $3.6 trillion this year (a rate of $300 billion per month), running an annual deficit of about $1.3 trillion. So, even if the IRS decided to confiscate every cent earned by millionaires in a given year, it would amount to less than half of the new debt we are taking on each year, and would barely be enough to fund the government for two months. (2) According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest individuals in U.S. are worth a combined $1.37 trillion. Confiscating all their wealth (not just annual earnings) would buy us another 4.5 months. So even a tax scheme exaggerated beyond the levels proposed by President Obama and an even more unrealistic confiscation of wealth would do no more than keep us going at current spending levels for a few months! Second, President Obama continues to argue that our wealthiest citizens aren’t paying their “fair share.”  Fairness is a subjective standard.  Nevertheless, when you consider that between 47% and 51% of Americans are paying ZERO in federal income tax (depending on which measurement is being used), that the top 1% of earners pay 38% of all federal income taxes, and that the top 10% of earners pay 70%, there may indeed be a fairness issue, but is probably that the rich are paying too much as a percentage of total revenues. Finally, the issue must come back to who knows what best to do with money earned.  I doubt that Warren Buffet has always felt that he was taxed too little.   While he was an ambitious young businessman, seeking to turn small investments into large gains, Buffet, like most businessmen, must have known that with every dollar he possessed, there was an opportunity to make more.  And in the process of turning his thousands of dollars in investment into billions, he would be making possible new businesses: businesses that hired one, ten, one hundred or perhaps thousands of new employees.  With each of these employees having new spending power that would have generated new economic activity.  And in some cases moving people off of government assistance; and, yes, creating new taxpayers.  Warren Buffet used to know that this is the key to growing an economy, reducing unemployment, and creating new wealth.  Unfortunately his sidekick, President Obama, never did.  Combined, the two are a danger to American prosperity.  We don’t need new taxes and new government spending.  We need businessmen like the old Warren Buffett to use their talents and their entrepreneurial energy to grow the economy, in an environment with will minimal government interference.  

('76 Editor) Listening to Ken Buck, the Weld County DA and 2010 GOP Senate nominee, make the case at CCU yesterday for a constitutional stopper on deficit spending, I kept thinking of the Tytler Thesis.  Whether not the authorship of this famous warning is accurately cited, its ring of truth is convincing and - amidst our present circumstances - chilling.  What is the warning? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tytler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, is supposed to have made these trenchant observations about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier: A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.  The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence: 1. from bondage to spiritual faith;2. from spiritual faith to great courage;3. from courage to liberty;4. from liberty to abundance;5. from abundance to complacency;6  from complacency to apathy;7. from apathy to dependence;8. From dependence back into bondage. Where do you think America is today, on that ladder from the top to the bottom and back?

Ken Buck spoke yesterday at a Centennial Institute forum on the federal-level Balanced Budget Amendment.  While Congress debates raising the debt limit yet again, the long-term strength of our economy becomes ever more threatened. Permitting more debt won't bolster our economy.  Only massive spending cuts can re-establish a strong basis for fiscal stability and economic growth.  Substantial cost-cutting can be achieved by not funding desirable but non-essential programs:  some aspects of entitlement programs and Obamacare, some government payrolls, much foreign aid and UN funding, support for multi-language programs.  Purchasing and labor contracts could be canceled or re-negotiated. If we taxpayers run into debt, we can't instruct our bank simply to raise our debt limit.  Instead, we must find ways to cut our spending. It is time for the federal government to face reality.  We need the federal-level Balanced Budget Amendment.

To: Justice Anthony Kennedy **From: Coloradans for Benevolent Despotism **Re: Enough with the Uppity Teabaggers ** (Denver Post, May 29) Tony, can we use first names? You have your dignity to think of, U.S. Supreme Court and all that – but we have a spending racket to sustain, so here goes.  Let’s drop the formalities and lay it out candidly.  Barring a Wikileak, this won’t be in the papers anyway. It was a banner week in Colorado for all of us who know what’s good for the public better than the public themselves.  With the filing of Herb Fenster’s federal lawsuit to declare the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights unconstitutional, we may see the end of 20 long years of politicians having to ask citizens for permission to tax them.  The galling indignity of it all!  As a fellow member of the enlightened elite, Mr. Justice, you’ll sympathize. TABOR, as the tax limit added to our state constitution by voters in 1992 is called, is alleged by wild right-wingers like House Majority Leader Amy Stephens to have protected Colorado from unchecked spending and California-style deficits.  Is she delusional?  TABOR’s “bad consequences for economic development and education” are notorious, as true Republicans like former Sen. Norma Anderson can attest. But we both know money isn’t the real issue here.  The issue is position and power.  Who knows best?  Who are today’s philosopher kings?  As a judge, you see one every time you look in the mirror.  We 34 plaintiffs in the Fenster suit sense in ourselves the same superiority.  Why else would the common folk have elected us to state, county, and local offices, school boards, RTD?  Born to rule, all of us – weren’t we, Tony? Never mind if the district court and the appeals court laugh at our looney legal theory that Article IV, Section 4, “guarantee(ing) to every state in this union a republican form of government,” disallows the taxpayer a chance to vote on how much of his hard-earned money the government can take.  Eventually it will come before the Supremes.  When it does, since you’re the swing vote out of nine, please do the right thing. Save us from the voters.  Please.  Deliver us, rescue us, spare us, Mr. Justice, from a miseducated (with too few teachers, overworked, underpaid), misinformed (with too little public broadcasting), stingy, stubborn, selfish, skeptical, bigoted, unwashed, unruly, SUV-driving, Fox-watching, gun-loving, greedy, grasping, holy-rolling, hard-hearted, ditto-headed citizenry who don’t understand that everything belongs to us – except what little we let them keep. The reason our anointed guild of educators and legislators, incumbents and used-to-be’s, frank Dems and faux GOP, formed Coloradans for Benevolent Despotism is that it has gone really sour between us and the electorate.  They no longer do our bidding.  Arnold and Maria aren’t more estranged than we and those uppity teabaggers. We’re not quite saying one man, one vote, one time – the way Mubarak did things – but honestly we’re sick of the sheep having so much control over their own shearing.  “One man, one vote, pony up, and shut up for two years,” would suit us fine.  Hence Fenster, unsupported though he is by the Founders or case law. So we’re counting on you, Antoine old buddy.  Understand?  The high court can be our Seal Team Six in black robes – except we only need five to win.  Yourself plus Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor (“wise Latina” is just another way of saying philosopher queen, after all) will stop all this excessive democracy.  No more voting on taxes, California here we come, party on, woo hoo!      

An in-depth analysis by a nationally known economist shows that a tax increase proposed by State Sen. Rollie Heath (D-Boulder) that is aiming for the 2011 ballot would reduce 119,000 jobs over the five years the higher rates on sales and income taxes are to be in effect. The study was conducted by Dr. Eric Fruits of Economics International for the Common Sense Policy Roundtable to measure the likely effects of possible ballot initiatives on the Colorado economy. The study examines the effect of the prospective tax increases on job growth in the state as well as the migration of taxpayers and their income. As shown in the table below, the tax increases under Sen. Heath’s proposal would have a negative impact on employment in Colorado and slow the state’s recovery from the recent recession. The study indicates that Sen. Heath’s proposal would reduce employment by 5,500 in the first full year, and that the reduction in growth rates over time will reduce employment by 30,500 by 2017, with a cumulative impact of 119,700 fewer working Coloradans. IMPACT OF HEATH MEASURES ON COLORADO EMPLOYMENT Year               Reduction in Employment   Cumulative  Reduction in Employment 1st: 2012        5,500                               5,5002nd: 2013      14,300                              19,8003rd: 2014       19,300                              39,1004th: 2015       23,200                              62,3005th: 2016       26,900                              89,2006th: 2017       30,500                              119,700 In addition to the harmful impact on employment, the study also shows that Sen. Heath’s proposal would substantially slow the migration of taxpayers to Colorado by 3,610 a year. “Our study concludes that Sen. Heath’s initiative will be a step backward for Colorado’s economic recovery. While Sen. Heath touts his initiative as a way to make up for cuts in education spending, the fact of the matter is, nobody can guarantee that the new revenue will go to education”, said CSPR Spokesman Dustin Zvonek. “Appropriation of General Fund revenue is determined by the legislature, and with the composition of the legislature changing every two years nobody can guarantee what Sen. Heath is promising”, added Zvonek. To view the full study, go to www.commonsensepolicyroundtable.com Common Sense Policy Roundtable is a non-profit free-enterprise think tank dedicated to the protection and promotion of Colorado’s economy. CSPR actively follows tax- and budget-related legislation and initiatives. To learn more visit www.commonsensepolicyroundtable.com or call Dustin Zvonek at 303.518.1663

(Centennial Fellow) Because those doggone Coloradans just won’t vote to increase taxes often enough, a cadre of folks who just can’t bear to see state government spend less is asking a federal judge to do something voters won’t – to strike down voters’ constitutional right to approve tax increases. Led by Democrat State Rep. Andy Kerr, plaintiffs contend that the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) in the Colorado constitution violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee that all states have a “republican form of government.” Don’t think that the plaintiffs have become orthodox disciples of James Madison.  They’re just sick and tired of state government being forced to tighten its belt during a recessionas ordinary Coloradans must do.  They’d rather raise our taxes and hope we’ll forgive or forget before the next election. The complaint claims that it’s permissible for citizens to vote on regular ol’ laws – but not on limiting government’s power to tax or spend.Without the power to tax and spend, the legislature is little more than a debating society, suggests Kerr, who is joined by Democrat legislators Sen. John Morse, Rep. Claire Levy and Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst. That’s quite a stretch given that the Founding Fathers explicitly placed severe restrictions on the legislative branch that they created (see The Bill of Rights). Congress wasn’t even authorized to collect an income tax until 1913 when the people and the states passed the 16th Amendment. Even more absurd is the proponents’ one-sided view of what citizens may be allowed vote on.  Although they rant against “direct democracy” as an imposition on legislature’s authority to tax and spend, they suspiciously ignore the numerous spending mandates that voters have approved. For most of the 31 plaintiffs this is not a principled lawsuit –not a testament to the superiority of representative government over direct democracy, but a convenient argument concocted to dismantle the most effective spending limitation in the nation. Consider: • For 101 years, the Colorado constitution has provided voters with the unrestricted right to change state laws, including the constitution. • For18 years, TABOR has given voters the last word on tax increases and has limited the growth of government spending. Never before has anyone argued that these provisions somehow run afoul of the federal constitution. TABOR doesn’t impose a “straightjacket” on the legislature, as plaintiffs claim; it requires that lawmakers must ask the people.  But Colorado voters aren’t pushovers.  Since TABOR passed in 1992, voters have approved four of 16 measures to increase taxes or modify spending limits. Referendum C, passed in 2005, has enabled the state to spend an additional $4.5 billion over the past six years and eliminated the perverse incentive to prop up spending in order to preserve maximum spending authority for subsequent years. Still Democrat lawmakers — with a wink from the state Supreme Court — have routinely skirted TABOR’s limitsby raisingmore than $1 billion from higher property taxes, vehicle registrations, hospital “fees” and assorted other taxes without once asking voters for permission. The dirty little secret is that TABOR isn’t the problem – unless you want to balance the budget by raising taxes.  State spending for 2011-12 is $1.2 billion below the TABOR/Ref C limit.Erase TABOR completely and the state would not have one more dime to spend unless legislators taxed us more. “Colorado government has a revenue shortfall because Colorado families and businesses have a revenue shortfall,” reminds Senate Republican Leader Mike Kopp, who opposes the lawsuit. Indeed direct democracy has created its share of problems (e.g., no one is accountable when voters pass initiatives that just don’t work out), and we’d be better served by less of it rather than more. However, the way to correct course is for lawmakers to re-gain the voters’ trust (as Democrat former Speaker Andrew Romanoff tried to do)and to stop surreptitiously passing taxes and fees. Asking a federal judge to tell us that certain subjects are too important for us to contemplate will only make voters more cynical. Mark Hillman served as Colorado senate majority leader and state treasurer.  He is now a Centennial Institute Fellow.

('76 Contributor) As Americans, for the third year running, hold Tax Day Tea Parties, it’s worth setting down a few thoughts on the tax code itself. 1) It’s too progressive The US has the most progressive tax structure in the developed world. More progressive than the Japan, more progressive than the UK, more progressive than Sweden, for crying out loud. You make it big with Ikea, you’re better off going back to HQ than staying here. This is a result of generations of structuring the code based on “who can afford” rather than “who has a stake.” Well, of course if you make more you can afford more. But it also means you can afford more shoes, maybe a nicer car, possibly a boat. It also means you can afford – if you choose – to indulge in hobbies or possibly lead charitable efforts. The question “who can afford” answers itself, but it notably fails to ask, “afford what?” Pretty much every activity except stuffing cash under the mattress helps create more wealth, and in a society with a rule of law and secure property rights, even – perhaps especially – the poor get to participate in that wealth, too. So when the government says that it “needs” more of your money, it really “needs” to be sure that the least important thing it’s going to do with that dollar is more important than the most important thing its owner can do with it. That’s a high bar to get over. As it should be. 2) It picks favorites Any tax system is going to do this sort of thing. Sales taxes will exempt food or clothing. But the possibilities for rent-seeking seem almost endless with out current tax system. Regulations may raise barriers to entry, but the Aristocrats of Pull are really made through the tax code, rewarding political allies and misdirecting massive amounts of resources in the process. The income tax, since it’s stated as a percentage of some known amount – what you made last year – also encourages the government’s delusion that it’s really all their money, except for what they let you keep. It’s only with a tax code susceptible to endless manipulation that a President could talk about “reducing spending in the tax code.” When it gets to that point, there’s really nowhere left to go. 3) It encourages debt This used to be worse. It used to be that all interest was deductible, but that was phased out a couple of decades ago, so now for individuals, we’re down to the mortgage interest deduction. But for businesses, most interest is still deductible, and while this encourages capital formation, it also leads to a debt-heavy capital structure. We’ve all seen what excess leverage can do, but other decisions get distorted as well. Successful mergers tend not to be financed with debt, but with cash, and it’s likely that a whole lot of bad M&A activity – doomed deals – wouldn’t happen if that interest weren’t deductible. 4) It can’t be complied with Not, “it’s hard to comply with.” It can’t be complied with. We all know about the NTU studies asking IRS employees to work a difficult tax question, and having each of them come up with a different answer. The fact that an average citizen has to spend hundreds of dollars to file taxes every year, and still could end up getting hauled into tax court because he got the wrong one of twenty different right answers is an offense against everything we expect from the rule of law. 5) Business taxes are too high Right now, the US not only has the most progressive tax system in the western world, we also have the highest business taxes in the industrialized world. Inidividually, either of these would be enough to start chasing wealth production out of the country. Together, they virtually guarantee it, particularly because we also tax dividend income. Dividends, of course, are just a distribution of profits to the owners. Profits which have already been taxed. Not all countries do this. Some allow a tax credit against dividends, and some just don’t tax them at all. So as we go to our Tax Day Tea Parties, remember, it’s not just how much they’re taking. It’s the way they’re taking it.

('76 Contributor) Question for those of you concerned about the size of federal debts and deficits: Would you endorse a plan which would add another five or six trillion dollars to the federal debt over the next decade while increasing Uncle Sam’s annual expenditures by $1.1 trillion? If so, you’re in luck. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently unveiled just such a plan. Naturally, Democrats immediately denounced Ryan’s plan as “radical.” They think the increases in spending and debt should be much larger. It shows how far the goalposts have been moved in American politics that adding multi-trillion-dollars of debt is the most conservative proposal anyone in government has made. How would you like your government debt, Mr. or Ms. Citizen—gargantuan or astronomical? The Ryan Plan, if implemented (more on that in a moment), would cut $179 billion from President Obama’s planned spending in 2012 and another $241 billion in 2013. Why is it not “radical” to raise spending by $787 billion in one year, like Obama did in 2009, but “radical” to propose a decrease of $179 billion? Ryan proposes to reform Medicare and Medicaid so that they don’t bankrupt the country. Why is that demonized as “war on the elderly and poor” (the phraseology of Illinois Democrat Jan Schakovsky), but nobody talks about waging “war on the young” by saddling the rising generation with trillions of dollars of debt? Ryan’s plan is bold in comparison to the status quo in Washington, but it isn’t radical. You want “radical?” How about getting government out of the medical field entirely? Since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, medical costs have soared far beyond the rate of inflation. More than that, market competition has been diminished and fraud and inefficiency have ballooned apace with the growth of these two medical bureaucracies. (Why do liberals rant and rave about the Pentagon’s inefficiencies, but remain silent about the similar inefficiencies of Medicare and Medicaid?) Ryan’s plan is statist to the core, promising seniors large government subsidies with which to choose from a slate of government-regulated health care plans. At this stage, Ryan’s plan is academic. Its combination of spending cuts, tax cuts, and devolution of administration of government programs from the federal to the state level—while a significant improvement over the fiscal insanity of recent years—is dead in the water until at least 2013. If you doubt that, look at the recently concluded “government shutdown” soap opera. The government is going broke, the Republicans were asking for a giveback of less than 10 percent of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid spending increases, but the Democrats—famous for extolling bipartisanship—threatened to shut down the government rather than make such a modest compromise. It will be interesting to see how long Ryan’s fellow Republicans in the House stand by his proposals. The coming vote is largely symbolic. The real test will be when Republicans have to face the voters in close re-election races next year. A majority of Americans may say that they favor reduced federal spending and smaller deficits, but when push comes to shove, how many will vote for a legislator who actually shrinks programs from which voters benefit? Even if Ryan’s plan, by some miracle, were to be enacted, nothing fundamental would change. Uncle Sam will remain a gigantic, meddling nanny, interfering with our lives and progressively eroding our liberty, entangling us in a corrupt network of special privileges that murder justice and bury the rule of law. Ryan’s plan is a futile attempt to square the circle. He is trying to find a way to preserve an inherently flawed system—a democratic transfer society—whereby government somehow takes care of all of us without eventually spending itself into bankruptcy. The Ryan Plan is not radical; that is, it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. It never questions the legitimacy of government redistribution of wealth. The mechanisms, rationale, and justification for Big Government remain unchallenged. Although a significant step in the right direction (i.e., less federal spending), Paul Ryan’s plan ultimately is not a cure for what ails us. Mark Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and fellow for economic and social policy with the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

(Denver Post, March 27) A useful new verb was coined the other day when Republicans joined Democrats to propose higher pension contributions by public employees and a union boss called it a “blatant attempt to Wisconsinize the Colorado budget process.”  What a great idea, thought many a tired and worried taxpayer.  Wisconsinize away, legislators – what took you so long? Statewide unemployment is record-awful, and metro Denver unemployment worse still.  Why shouldn’t these job-secure teachers and state workers kick in a little more toward their comfy (but now shaky) retirement plans?  As recession maintains its grip despite cheery official statistics, the dirty secret is out:  Government employees at all levels across the land are better compensated than you and me in the private sector. So, yes, by all means. Colorado should not only Wisconsinize downward its public pay and benefit packages, along with the union bargaining leverage that drives them.  It should also New Jersey-ize transportation, Florida-ize health care, Utah-ize the schools, and Texas-ize the tax system.  Other states are making hard choices for fiscal survival and economic revival – and doing it on the spending side, not with revenue grabs.  We can too. “Colorado cannot expect to grow its way out of its budget problems,” warned Charlie Brown, veteran of decades on the legislative staff and now head of DU’s fiscal think tank, in a much-noticed report last month.  Our state has a revenue problem as well as a spending problem, agrees Henry Sobanet, budget director for Gov. John Hickenlooper.  But do we really?  It depends on your assumptions. Former state Rep. Penn Pfiffner starts his fiscal slide show with a chart showing that total state spending from taxes, fees, and federal funds has never decreased in modern times.  Never.  Pfiffner is now with the Independence Institute, and he directed their Citizens Budget project, which published a “road map for sustainable government in Colorado” several weeks ago.  Working from a projected $1 billion gap between the trend lines for revenue and spending, his citizen budgeteers identified specific, realistic savings in K-12 education, health care, corrections, higher education, transportation, and pensions that would more than balance the budget – and bend the spending curve down in future years, so the structural deficit identified in DU’s study wouldn’t persist. The resulting 168-page book (of which I peer-reviewed a chapter) plows through grainy detail in department after department until your eyes ache.  No rosy generalities or unspecified “waste, fraud, and abuse” cuts for this corps of academicians and experts.  No throwing grandma out in the snow, either.  Their roadmap could actually get us home, provided we’re grown up enough to follow it.  “To assume,” says a bad pun and good proverb, “can make an ass of U and me.” Pfiffner and company reject the assumed inevitability of Sobanet’s revenue deficiency and Brown’s grimly rising graphs for spending on schools, prisons, and Medicaid out to 2025.  They assume instead that we control our own destiny, in the problem of over-government as in every other area of political life – and all history is on their side. Liberals such as Sen. Rollie Heath are so sure revenue is the problem that they want to raise income taxes and sales taxes.  Conservatives such as Jon Caldara, who funded the Pfiffner counter-budget, are so sure it’s not that they’re proposing a tax cut.  Reduce income taxes in the face of a doomsday deficit?  How Reaganistically visionary. How Wisconsinish.  But then, Texas has no income tax at all, and it’s booming.  Utah schools outperform Colorado with much larger classes.  Florida Gov. Rick Scott turned down big money from Obama for a health-insurance exchange (which some Republicans here seem to want).  New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie nixed that expensive tunnel.  Grownups can do this stuff.  Now is the time.