But there are no tax cuts. There are only Doug Bruce-backed anti-tax proposals– Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101– that are strongly opposed by the vast majority of lawmakers and politicians on all sides of the political spectrum.

Doug Bruce

“Just one of these initiatives would alter state government,” said Gov. Bill Ritter last December. “We’re talking about an estimated $1.2 billion drop in revenue after years already of cutting services. The amount the initiatives propose to cut would slice into our higher education budget by a factor of two. Something would have to simply go away.”

Defeated GOP candidate for governor Scott McInnis broke a long silence on the initiatives in the spring to agree with Ritter, saying that the “math simply doesn’t add up.”

The members of the official coalition created in opposition to the three initiatives, Coloradans for Responsible Reform, are all on record and have been open about the money they are giving to the cause. They are, as Hoover reports, “heavy hitters in the business community, nonprofit world and organized-labor sector.” The coalition has raised more than $4 million.

The other side has been less open by a long shot. Proponents of the measures were reportedly steered by Bruce, the controversial anti-government father of the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Bruce likely authored the initiatives without putting his name on them and he appears to have paid petition circulators without disclosing the payments. He also seems to have tampered with witnesses called to testify about the initiatives in a campaign finance trial this spring.

At the end of July, the political issue committee that supports the initiatives, CO Tax Reform, reported only $12,000 in contributions, of which the conservative Hasan family donated $10,000. Ali Hasan contributed $5,000 and his mother, Seeme Hasan, contributed $5,000.

“[Doug Bruce] is one of the finest conservatives since Ronald Reagan,” Ali Hasan told the Colorado Springs Gazette. “I love him like a family member and he loves me very much.”

Opposing the initiatives, as Hoover reports, there are plenty of state employee unions but there are also bond dealers, bankers, the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Southeast Business Partnership. Those businesses and business leaders aren’t looking to “defeat tax cuts.” They’re looking to “maintain the status quo,” they told Hoover, which means paying already low taxes to support basic public services essential to thriving business, services that include roads and schools and police and fire protection.

Kate Horle, spokeswoman for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, said the businesses she represents were frustrated at having to help beat back the anti-tax initiatives but they clearly found the fight essential.

“Would we rather be spending half a million dollars on boosting Colorado’s economy? Absolutely,” she said. “You can employ people for that. You can give people raises for that. It’s unfortunate.”

Suggested alternative headlines for Hoover’s story: “Business leaders join coalition to defeat tax-slashing ballot initiatives.” Or: “Business leaders say proposed anti-tax initiatives have already cost Colorado jobs.”

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If you’ve never paid taxes and all of the sudden you have to pay taxes, that’s a tax increase.

But if you’ve never paid taxes, ever, and you lean upon services provided by the state and it’s a deep recession and the state budget is in the red, why do you feel entitled to continue to not pay taxes?

The Post’s Tim Hoover at the Post on the debate:

“We’re asking big business to pay their fair share so that we don’t have to keep balancing the budget on the backs of teachers, police officers and firefighters, senior citizens and the neediest who depend on our safety net,” said House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver. “It’s only been the GOP and their special-interest cronies who have been complaining because we’re rolling back corporate welfare and special-interest tax loopholes.”

But Republicans said the bills would just increase taxes on businesses, many of them small, that provide jobs to ordinary Coloradans.

“The Democrats’ rush to tax the citizens and businesses, who make up the backbone of Colorado’s economy, came full-circle this morning,” said House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker. “After hours of testimony from business owners and citizens who oppose these tax increases, Democrats still chose to ignore that message and take them one step closer to reality.”

The eight bills are expected to generate as much $64 million for the 2010-11 budget year that begins in July. If three more bills make it in the package, that total could increase to as much as $140 million.

The bills come from Gov. Bill Ritter’s proposal to eliminate or suspend 13 tax exemptions and credits.

Hoover writes that the debate is throwing a spotlight on Democratic lawmakers in seats likely to be closely contested this year, many of them wary to vote with their caucus and eliminate the exemptions. Which of the phrases are those lawmakers using to refer to the bills? The eight bills passed the House and have moved on to the Senate. The language is bound to be even more starkly contrasting.

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Although Penry jumped into the campaign strongly this summer, winning “rising star” status from popular Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza, he has recently struggled.

Even though he posted large fundraising figures for the first quarter, for example, he was overtaken by primary rival former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis. Penry raised $400,000 and tweeted about it proudly only to be deflated when McInnis later announced he had pulled down $545,000, establishing himself as the clear frontrunner, enjoying the edge in experience, name recognition and cash.

Penry worked for McInnis as a Congressional staffer and never fully succeeded shaking the impression that McInnis had his number. McInnis fueled the impression by appearing unflappable in the face of Penry jabs. McInnis refused to debate Penry or even to appear in straw poll events with him.

Josh Penry

Penry also seemed to be losing momentum on his message. Although he opened the campaign with a clear platform based on admitting to Republican fiscal failures, he soon seemed to be casting about, attacking Gov. Ritter with arguments designed for dramatic effect but increasingly untethered to facts. It was as though the budget crisis that is forcing Ritter every day to announce cost-slashing measures was undoing Penry’s planned program-cutting platform.

Penry’s complaints about Ritter’s prisoner-furlough program as carelessly reckless, for example, was the opposite of the reality. As the Colorado Independent reported, the program was meticulously thought out, a product of long planning based on research that showed incarceration and recidivism as a major financial drag on the state and that looked at which prisoners would be best to parole months early. In other words, it might have been exactly the kind of “hard choice” cost-cutting measure Penry described as essential to good government. His attacks seemed opportunistic and recalled the ugly national campaign that featured infamously furloughed Massachusetts prisoner Willie Horton in commercials run by George H. Bush in his campaign against Mass. Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Penry’s recent attacks on the Governor’s Energy Office were similarly reaching. He called the office a “silo of patronage” and said it should be eliminated. But asked to say which patronage positions he was referring to, he came up with merely two names, and neither person owed their position to patronage. One of the employees, in fact, merely used workspace in the Energy Office and was not paid out of the Office budget. Indeed, the Office budget had been slashed to the bone by Ritter and is now running almost entirely on federal funds.

In addition, Penry seems to have made a poor decision in his selection of campaign manager Mike Britt. The choice seemed antithetical to his “new GOP politics” message. Britt cut his teeth working for Karl Rove, perhaps the most visible GOP strategist of the divisive cultural politics of the past decade. Britt was under investigation as a political staffer in George Bush’s White House and last week news surrounding Britt’s suspect tinkering with Republican National Committee email lists overshadowed Penry’s campaign.

Wins by moderate Republicans in two governor’s races last week may also be weighing on the decision for Penry to move aside for McInnis. Moderate Republicans Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell beat their Democratic rivals in New Jersey and Virginia. McInnis is perceived as more moderately conservative than is Penry.

Cillizza is now reporting that in fact last week’s governor’s races influenced the decision.

Sources close to Penry suggested that he was heavily influenced by the victories for Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia last week — wins due, at least in part, to the lack of competitive primaries on the Republican side.

Penry was worried that a bruising August primary would potentially compromise the eventual nominee’s chances of beating Ritter. Combine that with his youth (he is 33) and his role as state Senate Minority Leader and Penry decided that dropping out of the race was the best option for him and the party.

Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said the governor had no comment on the news of Penry’s decision, which he noted is yet to be confirmed.

In advance of the announcement, observers are speculating as to why Penry appears to be leaking the news in waves to Cillizza in Washington D.C. rather than to his home town paper, the Grand Junction Sentinel, or the Colorado paper of record, the Denver Post.

The Denver Post recently ran stories critical of Penry attacks on Ritter. Tim Hoover last month wrote a piece that scewered Penry‘s claims that Ritter had been expanding government. Lynn Bartels wrote the piece that punctured Penry’s “silo of patronage” claim regarding the Enery Office.

Michael Huttner, founder and head of liberal activist group ProgressNow, speculates in a press release that McInnis has had a hand in pushing Penry out through lobbyists in D.C., which he believes explains why the story is originating there.

“If this is true, it’s the old D.C. lobbyist guard stepping out of the shadows to clear the field for Scott ‘McLobbyist’ McInnis. McInnis’ ties to lobbyists, oil and gas interests, and corrupt cronies like Tom DeLay can’t help but make one wonder what’s really going on when his primary opponents start dropping out of the race.

[...]

And it should come as no surprise that this story broke first in Washington D.C. instead of Colorado, since that’s where ‘McLobbyist’s’ best friends are. We call on McInnis to disclose which of his lobbyist friends helped push Penry out.”

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Contrast Cillizza’s view from 30,000 feet with the informed ground-level story on Penry that came out today in the Denver Post. It’s a character profile with real meat written by Tim Hoover, someone who makes his living closely watching Colorado lawmakers wrestle with the budget, the defining issue of state politics. Hoover is unimpressed with Penry’s thinking on the subject. He doesn’t see innovation and credibility. He sees hypocrisy and positioning.

Hoover writes that after criticizing Gov. Ritter for not making “tough choices” on the budget, Penry pounced when Ritter made the tough choice to close a facility for developmentally disabled patients in Penry’s hometown Grand Junction. Hoover details how Penry oozed sympathy for the plight of the patients, which was dutifully reported by the local paper, along with Penry’s more general critiques of Ritter’s governing decisions. Relatives of patients were left with the strong impression that Penry supported keeping the facility open. Penry sent a letter to that effect to one of the moms.

But of course no. Penry told Hoover that, as a fiscal conservative, of course he supported tough choices, including the closing of the clinic.

At the facility, Penry didn’t tell the patients’ relatives that he led a Senate filibuster this past session intended to scotch a key budget reform bill that passed and that will loosen up money for human services in the state. Penry didn’t relate how, instead of supporting that bill, he led his Republican colleagues in a hopeless sideshow opposing it, where for hours they took turns introducing amendments that would have preserved funding for highways instead of clinics and public safety and job retraining programs and so on.

He also failed to mention that he opposed accepting federal stimulus dollars, didn’t tell the people at the Grand Junction clinic that he would have turned away the federal money had he been governor and therefore would have put even greater numbers of teachers and medical clinic staffers and federal employees of all stripes out of work this year, as the recession continues to drain state coffers.

Where was that revealing tid-bit in the Washington Post’s “Riser” series? It places Penry at least partly in the same class with ridiculous stimulus refuseniks like Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford. Innovators! Risers! Results-oriented mavericks, every one!

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