Tag: Carol Hedges

When you hear people talk about Colorado’s proposed 2014-15 state budget, some like to use the word "spree.” It’s hardly a spree. The largest single percentage increase would go to the state's statutory reserve fund.

Here’s the thing: While taxes are a critical part of our work, we can’t talk about them. Not directly, at least, and certainly not in an election. I’ve learned to leave out the “t” word as much as possible.

The measure asks voters to raise $950 million for our public schools, while keeping Colorado’s taxes among the lowest in the country. It’s a no-brainer.

Journalists showed up to an 8:30 a.m. press conference today where the identity of #coleg Twitter jokster(s) YO! JBC RAPS was to be revealed. It was an April Fools' joke.

Small-government Texas, touted by Gov. Rick Perry as a model of fiscal health last year, is facing a budget deficit in the neighborhood of $25 billion, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It's no surprise that New York Times columnist Paul Krugman interprets the news as more evidence that the dominant contemporary Republican approach to government-- slash-spending, shrink social services, repeat-- is bad economic policy. Krugman has been battling the accepted logic of narrow tax-slashing policy-making for years but, as the doors open on the new Republican-controlled Congress, his arguments will find even less traction with lawmakers. Krugman's warning about the crisis in Texas, however, may resonate in Colorado, which has been forced by the recession to introduce historic spending cuts the last two years. The legislative session is set to begin here this week and for months Republican lawmakers have been talking about reinstating tax breaks lifted last year as a top priority.

As Colorado wrestles with an already lean state budget growing leaner by the day -- one that has forced Gov. Bill Ritter to propose repeated controversial cuts to state services this year -- a trio of budget busting anti-tax initiatives is speeding its way to the 2010 ballot. The dramatic nature of the initiatives, which plainly seek to shrink state government, and their timing, coming as they do amid an historic budget crisis, has sparked high media interest and political buzz.

News that appraisers working for the El Paso County Assessor's office are now paying for their own training and travel supports testimony offered...

Dug up fresh, daily. TESTIFIED: Not all parties were equal among those called to weigh in at the state's Interim Committee on Fiscal Stability last...