By Jon Caldara

If you’re a fan of limited government, personal liberty, or educational choice, Tuesday night’s election results were a downer, just another one in a long line of depressing elections that has made Colorado more California than California.

However, if you prefer a controlling elite deciding your fate, debt, class envy and teacher unions, it was just another victory in a decade’s long win streak.

I’m curious how multi-billionaire nannyist Michael Bloomberg felt about his out-of-state investment. He put $5 million toward convincing Denver voters adults must stop buying Swisher Sweets cigars (which contains flavored tobacco, the new fentanyl).

As adults drive by marijuana shops selling flavored edibles, liquor stores selling peach-infused vodka, and legal psychedelic mushroom operations, it’s adults buying smoking cessation products like Zyn in Denver that Michael Bloomberg knows is the scourge of our nation.

It didn’t matter it is already illegal for anyone under 21 years old to buy any tobacco or nicotine products, flavored or not. Bloomberg’s millions convinced voters this was a ban on children buying the stuff. He won handedly as he spent nearly $52 per “yes” vote to make it happen.

Fifty-two bucks a person was enough to convince Denverites who scream “my body, my choice!” when it comes to abortion that government needs to stay out of your uterus but shove itself down your adult lungs. He can’t run New York anymore, so he regulates Denver.

His $5 million was the most spent on any ballot issue or candidate in Colorado this year. For perspective, the class-baiting tax increase on rich people to buy free lunches for just slightly less rich people’s kids raised only $800,000. And that was a statewide question not a tiny one like Denver’s cigar ban.

Passing Propositions LL and MM, the double-down on free lunches in Colorado, was certainly no shock. But it gives us some things to speculate.

It did not surprise me MM passed. What did surprise me was it passed by a larger majority than the original tax proposal, Prop FF, just a couple years ago.

By contrast voters seem to have learned their lesson on the wolf reintroduction fiasco. If put on the ballot today, “wolves” would certainly lose. I think witnessing the debacle of flinging apex predators throughout Colorado is what drove Denver voters to recently reject the slaughterhouse ban and a ban on selling furs. They realized that maybe in some areas, government doesn’t know what it’s doing.

In the same way, the farce that is the free lunch program should’ve caused more of us to reconsider the blatant socialism of stealing from those who have more than you.

It took no time for the current free lunch program to run into the red. I mean, go figure, you offer people free stuff, and they line up to take it. The program also failed to source food locally as promised in the original Prop FF. In other words, the state really FFed the whole socialistic experiment.

Yet even after witnessing this failure, a larger percentage of people voted for MM than the original FF. More of us want to penalize successful people to empower government elite to decide what their own kids should eat.

Could this be a leading indicator the socialist value structure of “take from thy neighbor” has taken root here? Props FF and this year’s LL and MM might be the gateway drug for the cocaine of “democratic socialism.” The first one is always free. “Yo, here’s a sandwich for your kid, you know, on the house.” Before you know it, we’re replacing our successful flat income tax rate with a punitive, progressive income tax.

New York’s socialist mayor-elect spelled it out in his victory speech. “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”

Translation: Here in Colorado we will destroy our economy to save the Earth from climate change (while China builds a dirty coal plant every day), punish the productive, risk-taking class and chase them out of the state (see New York in California) as we micromanage every aspect of your life (like outlawing Swisher Sweet cigars, and feeding your children the meals of our choosing).

Is this the Colorado we’ll buy when some out-of-state billionaire sells it to us?

By Mike Rosen

Although people that fall within the age boundaries of a generation may have many characteristics and beliefs in common, a sweeping generalization that stereotypes all of them is presumptuous, ignoring the individuality of many others. Since I was born during World War II, I’m two years short of being technically a Baby Boomer. However, I’m close enough to fit some of the stereotypes of that generation like a strong work ethic, personal responsibility, loyalty, and patriotism.

Gen Z-ers were born between 1997 and 2012, which makes them 13-28 years old now. Their unflattering stereotypes include being self-absorbed, requiring constant praise, narcissistic, job-hopping, feeling entitled, woke, hypersensitive, preferring socialism to capitalism, social justice activists, glued to their cell phones and social media, financially irresponsible, and preferring to have pets rather than wives and children. They’re proud of the participation trophies they were handed after finishing last in grade-school sporting contests. Ambition and competition are sources of anxiety for them. In fairness, I have to say I’ve met some conservative Gen Z-ers who don’t match this stereotype but the great majority of this generation, especially the young women, are indoctrinated progressives who vote for Democrats; the kind of people who’ve flocked to the mayoral campaign of socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City.

A recent op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal by Suzy Welch, was headlined “Is Gen Z Unemployable?” Welch is a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business who conducted a study of the values and virtues business-hiring-managers look for in prospective employees versus those of typical Gen Z-ers. Welch concludes that most Gen Z-ers are going to have a hard time finding a good job in many fields if they don’t change their attitude.

A few days after the Journal published Welch’s column, it ran a letter-to-the editor from a Logan Bradford of Lidon, Utah, apparently a proud Generation Z-er, who strongly disagreed. He doesn’t believe that Gen Z-ers should “pay their dues” and conform to a company’s culture in order to get hired or advance. It’s just the opposite, he argues. Businesses should design their workplaces to match the values of young Gen Z-ers so that they’ll be happy and flourish.

Bradford analogizes this to marketing. “You don’t tell customers to adjust their values until they like your product. You tailor your product to meet them where they are,” further insisting that, “a company’s most important customers are its employees.” (Which are two distinctly different things.) Then he claims, “Gen Z’s values aren’t liabilities to manage; they’re assets to mobilize,” leading to this grandiose conclusion: “Self-care drives sustainability, authenticity fuels trust, and altruism builds team cohesion.” Finally, he concludes, “Paying dues won’t make them stronger, it’ll make them leave.” (Good riddance, I say.)

Welch’s survey of 2,100 experienced hiring managers in knowledge-industries that rely heavily on human capital were asked to identify the number-one value they desire in their new employees. “Achievement” came in first, defined as the value of wanting accomplishments and success other people can see; that was ranked eleventh by Gen Z-ers; 61% of whom wished they had less of it in their lives. “Scope,” the desire for learning, action and stimulation, was ranked second by businesses and tenth by Gen Z-ers. And “Workcentrism,” the desire to work for work’s sake came in third for employers but ninth for Gen Z-ers.

Of the 45,000 people who took Welch’s values test, 7,563 were Gen Z respondents of which only 154, just 2.04 percent, placed achievement, scope and workcentrism in their top five values. That disconnect between what employers want and what Gen Z-ers demand doesn’t help their job prospects ― except for the two percent who match up. Despite their inflated self-importance in a tight, competitive employment market, Gen Z-ers are likely to be beggars not choosers.

As for careers they’d be better-suited for, I doubt it would include the discipline, hierarchy and rigidity of the military where they might find a drill sergeant insensitive and the weaponry off-putting. But working in a bodega could be fun and even catapult them to a seat in Congress as it did AOC, their political idol, with whom they could collaborate to get their unpaid student loans cancelled (a master’s degree in Ethnic Studies isn’t cheap). They’d also fit in well as a liberal journalist, NPR reporter, MSNBC commentator, Bernie Sanders intern, social worker, Ivy League college professor, labor union organizer, public defender, shoplifter, or paid anti-Trump protestor if they love to obstruct the police and scream hysterically.

By Jon Caldara

Outside of Colorado, Democrats are still panicked about President Donald Trump’s victory, trying to figure out how Americans can be so stupid as to reject their elitist-driven, woke socialism.

But inside Colorado, Democrats see no need to worry. Unchecked power tends to do that.

A new report from a centrist Democrat group called Welcome confirms what most Coloradans already know but won’t say out loud for fear of getting canceled: the Democratic Party has drifted into a progressive fog, unmoored from the realities of regular people.

The Welcome report, blandly titled “Deciding to Win.” took six months, hundreds of thousands of voter interviews, and several gallons of kombucha to reach one earth-shattering conclusion — voters think Democrats are “out of touch.”

Seventy percent of voters said so, to be exact. That’s not a typo. It’s practically consensus in our fractured age. If the question had been, “Do Colorado roads suck?” the number wouldn’t be much higher.

Here’s what voters told them: the Democrat Party is too consumed by climate change, identity politics and “saving democracy,” and not nearly enough about the stuff that decides whether you can pay your mortgage or afford meatloaf (of course, meatloaf is murder. How many meat-out days do you need to get that?).

Specifically, their deep dive found voters want the Democratic Party to prioritize (in this order): protecting Social Security and Medicare, lowering everyday costs, making health care more affordable, creating jobs and economic growth, cutting taxes on the middle class, lowering the rate of crime, and securing the border.

Guess what voters want the Democratic Party to stop promoting? Protecting the rights of undocumented workers, raising taxes to increase spending on social programs, protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, fighting climate change, promoting unions and union jobs, promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, and reducing police brutality.

Holy crap — voters want Democrats to turn into Republicans, sans the social stuff like abortion.

The values of elite urban progressives who run the party don’t jibe with the working voters they claim to represent.

Now, translate that to Colorado. Our legislature treats every session like a grad-school seminar in progressive performance art. They churn out bills on pronoun policies and green-energy mandates faster than their fans can spray-paint “No Kings” on a highway viaduct. Meanwhile, working Coloradans are stuck choosing between paying their Xcel bill and making rent.

The report analyzed how far left Democrats in Congress have moved in the last decade alone: Support for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” grew from 41% to 88%; support for giving full voting rights to federal prisoners grew from 4% to 44%; banning all state abortion limits from 66% to 98%; and support “studying” reparations for descendants of slaves from 1% to 57%.

And sadly, the Democrats in Congress all seem like William F Buckley Jr. next to the Democrats in Colorado’s legislature.

The report lists electric-vehicle subsidies as one of the least popular Democratic policies tested nationwide. It turns out most folks don’t love the idea of their tax dollars funding someone else’s luxury car purchase. Who knew?

But in Colorado, the EV gravy train just keeps rolling, you know, to save democracy.

The Welcome poll also found at the federal level Democrats suffer “particularly large trust deficits” on crime and border security. You don’t say. Here in Colorado, they’ve decriminalized nearly everything short of armed bank robbery

One of my favorite tidbits from the report: mentions of “environmental justice” in Democratic platforms are up 333%, while mentions of “fathers” are down 100%. That’s not satire, just a stat.

The Welcome data also found highly educated and affluent Democrats — sound familiar, Boulder/Denver? — care about climate change 23% more than average voters and care about border security 27% less.

The Welcome report’s prescription is simple: stop trying to impress the faculty lounge, start listening to the break room. That goes double for Colorado Democrats.

If they spent half as much time worrying about grocery prices as they do about greenhouse gases, they might notice working families are suffocating — not from CO2, but from the cost of living under their web of regulations and mandates.

The Welcome report might be aimed at national Democrats, but our overlords at Colfax and Broadway should take note.

Colorado Democrats might not always have Republican Party dysfunction to guarantee their perpetual victories.

By Mike Rosen

On the Colorado ballot are two statewide measures that are interwoven: Propositions LL and MM. Both are legacies of Proposition FF, referred to voters by the Democrat-controlled state legislature and passed in 2022, creating the Healthy School Meals for All Program (HSMA). Prior to HSMA, the state covered the cost of school lunches only for “at-need” (a euphemism for “poor”) students. HSMA expanded that coverage to include all students regardless of household income, including the children of rich parents. This was just one of countless supposedly “temporary” programs during and after the COVID epidemic.

But Prop FF went way beyond HSMA. It was the camel’s nose under the tent for the first stage of the Democrats’ latest scheme to undermine the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), a constitutional protection that bars the legislature from increasing taxes or imposing new ones without the consent of voters. TABOR also limits state spending to the growth in population and inflation, refunding any revenue surplus to taxpayers. Democrats have tried to kill TABOR for years and resort to devious tactics to get around it like misrepresenting tax increases as “fees.”

LL and MM is the second stage. Prop LL allows HSMA to retain overcollected revenues that would otherwise refund to taxpayers. Before FF, Colorado used your federal taxable income, including the federal standard deduction, to calculate your state income tax. Prop FF raised income taxes on earnings over $300,000 by denying the full federal standard deduction, exposing more earnings to taxation. Prop MM goes much farther. For example, the federal standard deduction for joint filers in 2025 is $33,200. Had MM been in effect this year, its standard deduction would have been limited to a mere $2,000, exposing another $31,200 of one’s earnings to taxation. Moreover, that $300,000 marker isn’t indexed to inflation, so bracket creep would drag in many more with real income lower than that each year.

The next step, a really big one, is a ballot measure primed for 2026 by the Bell Policy Center, an activist, Democrat-aligned left-wing think tank. the scheme would replace Colorado’s flat tax rate with a progressive income tax to soak all those earning more than $500,000. Similar policies have eroded the tax revenues of blue states like California, New York, and Illinois as upper-income residents flee to red states like Florida and Texas with no income tax. Colorado would be foolish to follow this example.

Moving on to the Denver ballot, the worst measures are Issues 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, and 2E. This is Denver’s so-called “Vibrant Denver Bond.” Five separate bond issues with a cornucopia of projects that will make Denver great again (unlike President Trump, Mayor Johnston and the City Council aren’t wearing red ball caps). Whatever the merits or demerits of this package, the obvious disqualifier is that Denver government is fiscally irresponsible and has no business getting even deeper in debt.

The cumulative new debt of these bonds is about $1 billion. Interest on the bonds will further burden each year’s city budget, totaling another billion dollars over the bonds’ term. Adding in the repayment of principal at maturity, that’s $2 billion overall. If the city rolls over the debt with future bond issues, the cycle of indebtedness worsens. By law, the cost of these general obligation bonds is passed on to Denver property taxpayers in a mill levy that will no doubt be raised, adding to that problem.

Denver’s government and bureaucracy is a model of inefficiency. The one-mile 16th Street Mall refurbishment project has taken three-and-a-half years and is way over budget. (By comparison, the Pentagon was built in 16 months during WW II.) A rational Denver government would reappraise its priorities. Instead of using each election as a springboard for yet more government spending to solve every imaginable social justice wish, subsidize thousands of illegal aliens, make Denver great for car thieves, and coddle other criminals, Denver government should open its eyes to reality and curb its spending. (And get rid of those stupid bike lanes.)

Given the Denver electorate, which chooses to be governed by a super majority of left-wing Democrat progressives, this won’t happen. The same can be said of Colorado’s overall electorate. The fiscal hole we’re in is the consequence of government addiction to the flood of temporary federal money during the COVID epidemic. That bonanza is over and government spending needs to return to pre-COVID levels. Instead, the politicians that Colorado’s progressive voters elect will continue to spend beyond our means in a self-destructive attempt to tax the state rich.

By Jon Caldara

For decades, Colorado has served as the nation’s favorite guinea pig — a testing ground for policies so bold, so idealistic and so occasionally boneheaded other states quietly thanked us for jumping in the pool first.

What Silicon Valley is for apps, Colorado is for policy experiments. Sadly, when our “beta test” crashes, there’s no “uninstall” button — just another special session.

Colorado was one of the first states to repeal the counterproductive progressive income tax and replace it with a fair, flat tax. This resulted in the current competition between states to get the lowest flat tax. Thus, the population and business exodus from California and New York to Texas and Florida.

We were the first to constitutionally cap government growth with our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

This double-barreled blast of flat tax and expenditure limitation lit Colorado’s economic engine into overdrive for three decades now. So, like trying to bring back polio, there are now efforts to bring back a progressive tax code and repeal TABOR. Of course, bringing back polio would be less damaging.

We were a forerunner of the charter school revolution with one of the first laws in the nation. Today more than 15% of all Colorado students attend a charter. If they all were in one school district, it would be the largest district in the state. All but a couple states now have charters.

We were the first to mandate a portion of transit’s bus service–the Regional Transportation District in this case–be contracted out to private companies. Same buses on same route and schedule but competitively bid brought in a 40% savings. That savings was later bonded to bring in much needed cash for the failed “Fastracks” rail nightmare.

Colorado was on the vanguard of term limits, second only to Oklahoma in a citizen’s initiative limiting a politician’s time in office. Turns out we should have limited politicians to a 3-day term. Live and learn. Some 16 states now have term limits.

Proud to say my organization, Independence Institute, was the driving force behind all these reforms. I personally take credit for all those victories even though I wasn’t even working for Independence at the time. I learned that trick from politicians.

More interesting is the flat income tax rate, charter schools and competitively contracting transit service were all signed into law by a Democratic governor, Roy Romer. This proves there was a time when Colorado Democrats did not hate taxpayers, business owners, or children.

Via a public referendum Colorado was the first to give women the right to vote. Sadly, this reform gained popularity nationally (complaints about that joke should be mailed to “Jon’s editors” at CompleteColorado).

Colorado was the first to legalize recreational marijuana. Following that example we now have some 24 states with legal recreational pot and 40 with medical marijuana. If other states follow us like that again with our new program of releasing apex predators, the nation will turn into a “Jurassic Park” sequel.

Call it courage. Call it foolishness. Either way, America can’t stop taking note of our lead, which over time has gone from reforms to empower people and limit government, to reforms to limit people’s freedoms and empower the state.

Worst is our romance with climate policy, leap-frogging California to chase the unattainable. We didn’t just embrace renewable energy — we married it, bought it a Tesla, and moved into a cabin with a compostable toilet. Colorado’s leaders have turned environmental virtue signaling into a full-time industry, complete with mandates, tax credits, consultants, and “climate equity” coordinators who couldn’t fix a thermostat if they wanted.

Try as they might our legislature can’t legislate physics. The energy crisis coming to Colorado will injure the poor the most. Business will just leave.

If our latest insane policy experiment, regulating artificial intelligence, breaks out of our laboratory the contagion could spell economic doom for the nation. Sure, it’s groovy to be the first state to strangle this tech infant in its crib. But just as Colorado made sure the oil-and-gas industry ran to less abusive states, tech companies will do the same.

Only China is laughing.

It used to be other states would say Colorado broke the mold, let’s follow them to economic success. But that was then.

Now other states can only say “thank you, Colorado, you tried it, so we don’t have to.”

By Mike Rosen

Jimmy Kimmel’s recent “firing” (actually, a mere one-week suspension) as host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” for his false, tasteless, and asinine remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination kicked off a firestorm of political controversy between the left and right about freedom of speech. Let’s set the record straight.

The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were profoundly inspired by our founders’ experience living under the tyranny of the British Empire and King George III over the American colonies. In creating our system of government and its institutions, the founders’ principal concern was to limit government and preserve individual liberty. This is particularly specified in the first ten amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights, throughout which there are multiple prohibitions of government control over the fundamental rights of the people and the states. Repeated phrases abound such as “Congress shall make no law, the right of the people shall not be infringed, no person shall be held to answer, and no warrants shall issue.”

The First Amendment’s protections were intended by the founders to apply to political statements, among other forms of speech. And, like other fundamental rights, they are not absolute. They’re subject to four vital words: “up to a point.” For example, freedom of religion doesn’t allow human sacrifice. Freedom to bear arms doesn’t include nuclear weapons. The right to assemble says, “peaceably” assemble. And freedom of speech doesn’t include incitement to riot. It’s unlawful, as are words found to be slanderous or libelous in court.

As much as I was disgusted by Kimmel’s remarks following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, they and the biased, ugly opinions he routinely expresses on air are nonetheless protected by the First Amendment which only prohibits government from abridging Kimmel’s freedom of speech. That’s why FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s threats to silence Kimmel were out of order.

On the other hand, Kimmel’s private sector employers have no such restraint. If ABC or its parent company, Disney, decide to fire him they have the legal right to do so, as well as a financial justification. His audience has been dropping since 2015 and had already plunged from 2.4 million viewers at the beginning of 2025 to 1.1 million in August with ad revenues following suit.

Over at CBS, Kimell’s buddy and fellow leftist Stephen Colbert is being fired for cause. Although his “Late Show” audience is twice the size of Kimmel’s, it has dropped 32% in the last five years, advertising revenues are way down, and CBS is losing more than $30 million on his show this year owing to Colbert’s $20 million salary and the exorbitant cost of his huge staff.

Kimmel’s and Colbert’s sycophantic left-wing audiences may revel in the one-sided diatribes and nasty ridicule of Trump, Republicans, and conservatives prepared by the show’s writers and dished out by these two smug comics, but it drives away half of the American public. TV network owners and executives would be incompetent to stand for that. It’s very bad for business.

As for Kimmel himself, his resume is pretty thin. He dropped out of two different colleges after a year in each and then kicked around in talk radio for a time, being fired from a station in Seattle and then another in Tampa. He later spent five years as “Jimmy the Sports Guy,” a minor figure for hosts of a morning show in L.A. Realizing his true passion was comedy, he later landed at the Comedy Central cable TV channel, then the home of “The Daily Show,” with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and a stable of progressive comedians who coddled the left and trashed the right. Kimmel is a quick-witted clown with a history of shooting off his mouth with inflammatory remarks that get him in trouble with his bosses. But, to borrow a classic H.L Mencken witticism, “deep down he’s shallow.”

The king of the TV late-night comedy-variety format with guests was undoubtedly Johnny Carson. At its peak in the 1970s and 80s his viewership was 10 million people (when the US population was 225 million compared to 340 million today) who watched him nightly on their bedroom TVs. Introduced each evening by Ed McMahon with the greeting “Here’s Johnny,” Carson’s opening monologue included jokes and political barbs that were bipartisan and funny but light-hearted. The show was meant to entertain not infuriate or push an ideology. His final show in 1992 drew an audience of 50 million. Jay Leno and Bob Hope had a similar style when it came to politics. Those were the days.

By Jon Caldara

Colorado’s governor just made this statement “The market has made it clear, EVs (electric vehicles) are here to stay.”

I agree with him. Electric cars, unlike 8-track tapes and rotary-dial phones, will continue to be available to consumers for a long, long time. Cool. But why he made the statement puzzles me. He did so while touting his decision that the state will increase one of its subsidies to buy a new EV from $6,000 to $9,000.

Wait a second. Which one is it? Has the market made clear electric vehicles are “here to stay”? Or do we need to increase the EV subsidy by a third to keep its market alive?

And it begs another question: If the state is in a budget crisis, why spend our very scarce money buying people cars instead of providing core governmental services? Oddly, it’s the governor’s decision alone.

During the recent special session, instead of doing their constitutional job of setting budget priorities, the state legislature booted that power to the governor. This hard-left legislature, that screams President Donald Trump has too much executive authority, just gifted their highest authority to Colorado’s chief executive.

In case you’re blissfully unaware, the left is finally noticing our three equal branches of federal government have become very unequal. The executive branch has gained more and more power because during the last century Congress kept ceding its authority to the president’s office. Colorado has been following that example.

But let’s talk electric cars. It’s been nearly a year since I let the taxpayers buy me one. I purchased a brand-new, completely sissy, Nissan Leaf. Although it retails for about $30,000, I got it for less than $14,000.

Can you really declare a product is “here to stay” when people will only buy it if someone else pays for most of it?

Although it’s as masculine as a bejeweled golf cart with a baby seat, I’ve enjoyed driving this little electric car more than I’d like to admit. It drives smoothly, is responsive, and has some get-up-and-go (which rarely matters thanks to traffic because we’ve stop building or even maintaining roads).

The downside? In snow it drives like a garbage dumpster sliding down a hill. It has little space to carry much of anything. Though I’m buying less gas, my electric bill went nuts. But what’s known as “range anxiety,” that’s the worst.

I’ve limped this car home with only 2% battery power left, making it more anxiety-powered than electric-powered. It’s no good for trips that might go long. So, like every other electric car owner, I also have a gas-powered car for, you know, life.

The statistics prove it. Subsidies to buy an EV go to people who already can afford a car.

Any member of the Green Industrial Complex reading this is now yelling, “Hey jerk, this new Colorado EV giveaway is income-dependent!” Indeed, it is. Your income must be 80% or less of your “area median income.”

So, according to the Colorado Energy Office, in my poverty-stricken county of Boulder a household of four can make $120,480 a year and still receive the $9,000 gift. Nice.

Beyond that, the state still gives anyone who buys an EV $3,500 (that will reduce next year) plus and extra $2,500 if the EV has a retail price of under $35,000 (that won’t reduce).

The state predicts this new giveaway of $9,000 will cost more than $28 million through the next three years. That’s not what you’d call a budget-driver, but it does represent more than 11% of the $250 million budget shortfall that’s mostly taken out on Medicaid receivers.

And don’t give me the “oh, this EV money comes from a special fee for clean transportation” crap. Money. Is. Fungible.

Jared Polis, who decided to rescind a 1.6% bump to Medicaid recipients to offset a fraction of the inflation (which is worse in Colorado than most other states), has put middle-class people who want a new plaything ahead of the handicapped dependent on Medicaid.

Of course this is by design. The false narrative is Trump cut Medicaid, thus Colorado will need to raise taxes (or “fees”) next year instead of the truth.

Our leaders want to spend our money on social engineering, not the core functions of state government.

By Jon Caldara

Everyone knows there’s no such thing as a free lunch. All the same Colorado voters will again be tested this November to see if they know that.

Expectations are that modern, middle-class Coloradans will deny the “no such thing as a free lunch” truism. They will likely double-down on buying their kids “free school lunch,” with other people’s money, without acknowledging what depraved values they are modeling for their children in the process.

Statewide referred measures LL and MM allow the state to keep excess tax revenue from our sputtering, over-budget new “free school lunch” program and increase taxes on families who make more than $300,000.

Yes, this issue has tax and fiscal repercussions, but really this election is a morality play: who are we and what do we value. The election tests our willingness to act on our class envy.

Do we support taking even more money from people we’re jealous of and giving it to, not the neediest, but ourselves — the middle-class families more than able to buy Johnny his own lunchroom sandwich.

This election is a precise proxy vote, a barometer on our tolerance of class resentment, nannyism and central planning.

There was a time when proud middle-class families wouldn’t dream of taking a handout to buy their kids a meal, or really much of anything. And the thought of that money coming only from your neighbor in the nicer house would have been even more repugnant. “What, do they think we are incapable of paying for our kids’ lunch?! Do they think we can’t make good decisions on what to feed our kid? Are we wards of the state now?!”

Of course, those were our values before we turned our state into a progressive paradise. That was then. Today our learned resentment of the “wealthy” who oppress us tempts us to find some way to get even.

Forcing them to buy our kids a “free” meal is the collectivist version of keying their car. It won’t break them, but it’ll cost them. And oh, they’ll know somebody hates them, but they won’t exactly know who.

Full tummies are needed for learning. We all agree providing subsidized lunch for kids of poorer families is an important part of our social safety net. It’s what we used to do, and we all chipped in.

There might even be an argument to increase the number of families eligible for “free” or reduced lunch. Fine. Let’s all share the cost proportionately and increase the number of families who can participate.

But that’s not what we did. We passed Prop FF in 2022 to celebrate class warfare and force rich families to buy meals for just slightly less rich families. Economists, since they can’t converse with actual humans, call it a “moral hazard.” We can just call it perverse.

This election is an opportunity to observe our greater societal beliefs in a petri dish.

Put aside the big concerns that will eventually cripple and destroy our republic: endless debt spending, printing fiat money, unfunded entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. Propositions LL and MM place Alexander Fraser Tytler’s argument that democracy is bound to fail under a microscope: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”

There are more pedestrian reasons to vote against these festering measures. It rewards the incompetence of those who design and run the system. They couldn’t even run it for a year without it going bankrupt and needing to be bailed out. The original ballot question promised to locally source food for schools. Hah! Never happened.

What kind of idiots are we if we think they won’t be coming back for more and more money?

And what of the creeping way it takes from family autonomy? Government elites and not parents decide what our children should and shouldn’t eat. Who’s really being re-educated, kids or parents?

And pardon me for being conspiratorial, but I see our educational system subtly indoctrinating against individualism and open markets.

What was your first experience with property rights and free markets? Maybe when you tried to trade your orange for another kid’s Oreo cookie. Not a problem when the lunchroom looks like a Soviet grocery. Everyone gets the same bland crap.

By Jon Caldara

Of all places to find a growing citizens’ rebellion against the nanny state, who’d guess it’s happening in woke Denver?

Take note — if Denverites can claw back a little freedom from their elite, it can happen in your city too.

In this city of 70 breweries, 2,000 liquor establishments, some 300 cannabis dispensaries and now mushroom clinics, it was pure poetry when the city council and Mayor Mike Johnston passed a ban on adults buying flavored tobacco and nicotine products, you know, for the kids.

A hint of cherry in your beer — sure. Peach-infused vodka — bring it on! Any bit of flavor in the product you’re using to help you quit smoking — a perversion that must be stamped out.

I imagine the city council members who voted to disempower people from their own bodily autonomy also spout “my body, my choice.”

The cognitive dissonance required for this type of selective maternalistic fascism is monumental. After all, those elite took away the personal decisions of 730,000 Denverites because, well, they know what’s right for others.

What they don’t say aloud, but we hear perfectly, is, “your body, our choice.” And constituents are finding that offensive.

Fortunately, some feisty business owners who didn’t appreciate potentially watching their shop be put out of business as pot shops spring up around them decided to do something. They delivered more than 17,000 signatures to repeal this bit of intolerance. And they’re starting to get some interesting allies.

Referendum 310 on the Denver ballot this fall repeals the ban on new smoking cessation products like Zyn and old favorites like Swisher Sweets cigars, which back in my day had to be smoked by every grandfather under penalty of law. Kids today just can’t get enough of them (if not obvious, that’s sarcasm).

Some progressives are understanding woke nannyism is driving people away from the Democratic Party.

Progressive leader Deep Singh Badhesha announced on X, “After a fight, the Denver Democrats will officially take no position on the flavored tobacco ban. Let’s stop nanny state politics that alienate working class voters and protect much needed revenue. This kind of government overreach is exactly what turns voters off.”

Democratic state Sen. Nick Hinrichsen piled on, “Democrats need to take a page out of the libertarian playbook. Adult choices that have no non-consenting third-party impact are never the government’s damn business. Ever.”

Have progressives decided they no longer care about children, realizing pre-teens just look cool with lit cigarettes dandling from their little mouths?

Or have they recognized many of their African-American constituents like menthols, which are now contraband? Or maybe they’ve noticed the large number of black and Hispanic voters who are growing tired of woke policies and voted for President Donald Trump.

In any event, it’s refreshing to see progressives stand up for personal liberty — just like it’s disappointing when conservatives join the nanny left and “for the children” prohibit adults from buying Swisher Sweets cigars.

Also encouraging is the pro-freedom team is outraising “team nanny” in campaign contributions. Tobacco and vape-shop owners losing their businesses to these bans are putting in the most money, followed by the companies that make the products.

The committee fighting to keep the ban is “Yes for Denver Kids,” which as far as I can tell has no kids in it, only aspiring babysitters. They hide behind kids, but — like tobacco, booze, cannabis and mushrooms — it’s already illegal to sell nicotine products to kids.

They say the reason to ban nicotine products to everyone at every age is sometimes these products have found their way into young people’s hands. Fortunately booze, tobacco, pot and mushrooms never find their respective ways into young people’s hands. We know that hasn’t happened because if it did city council would quickly ban those products too. They are that consistent and care that much about kids.

Most of the money for team nanny comes from Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund (even though kids can’t buy tobacco), Kaiser Permanente and nanny ultra-funder Michael Bloomberg, who also outlawed large sodas when he was mayor of New York.

So, just what is the difference between Michael Bloomberg and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Both have strongly held and controversial beliefs on public health policy. But though RFK Jr. says you shouldn’t take Tylenol, he hasn’t banned it.

Election night we’ll see if Colorado’s deepest-blue voters tell their elite they can make their own decisions.

By Jon Caldara

Only about a month and a half ago I predicted the Denver Broncos will use the subtle threat of leaving Colorado to get taxpayers to build them a new stadium.

In other words, I predicted history will repeat itself. Football stadiums are on a rotating 25-year life cycle with taxpayers buying these playpens so the ultra-wealthy can let their boys concuss one another.

Apparently, Denver Broncos ownership wishes to make me look foolish, (not a high bar; watch me dance).

So, after my poorly timed column ran, The Denver Broncos announced their plans to privately finance a new stadium in the heart of the city.

If they are good to their word, it will be a refreshing and rare example of an ownership group respecting both taxpayers and fans. Their announcement caught me off-guard. Even I had to be impressed.

But until the entire deal is signed in permanent ink, I will take my lead from Ronald Reagan to “trust but verify.” In other words, let’s see the details

The joint statement from the Broncos’ owners, the governor and the mayor of Denver was, after all, a well word-smithed work of craftsmanship: “In the spirit of a true civic partnership, the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group will privately fund this investment and work with the community, city and state to reconnect historic neighborhoods — with no new taxes.”

The magic words of course being, “with no new taxes.” These words have been used before to lull voters into whopping tax increases. In fact, the Denver Broncos under its previous ownership used that very phrase to get us to pay for their current stadium.

After Coors Field was basically paid for, meaning the 0.1% sales tax was set to expire, voters were asked to continue that tax to pay for Sports Authority-Invesco-Empower-Acme-Explosives-and-Road-Runner-Traps Field at Mile High.

If you keep a current tax from sunsetting, can you with a straight face say that it’s not a new tax? Bond dealers can. But of course, it’s a new tax.

We can only hope the Broncos’ owners aren’t eyeing some expiring tax to continue. Remember what happened after George H.W. Bush broke his “no new taxes” promise. History was rightfully unkind.

Also, new tax is different from new debt. It’s one thing for the Walton-Penner family to take out a mortgage for their stadium, it’s another thing if we somehow pick it up.

Since money is fungible, we should be careful of the shell game where taxpayers don’t pay for a new stadium but instead pay for all the improvements and new development around it.

With all that as a warning, we all should show our gratitude to the owner’s group for their rejection of corporate welfare by at least forgiving their loss to the Colts. (Really, the Colts?)

Now let’s get down to the shameful, depraved and totally un-American issue with the new proposed stadium.

Football is a war. Maybe a battle performed for our amusement, but a war all the same. It’s war played out on the gridiron. There are aerial assaults, long bombs, crushing ground offensives fighting for every inch. It’s war baby. (For the uninitiated I recommend George Carlin’s classic take of football versus baseball.)

And war is not fought indoors; chess tournaments and ping-pong matches are.

Football. Isn’t. Played. Inside.

At least real football isn’t. Although now that breathing too hard on the quarterback is “roughing the passer” and kickoffs look like a pee-wee T-Ball game, we might need to prevent a little snow giving a linebacker the sniffles

I get it. The Walton-Penner family wants a stadium with a retractable roof to allow events like concerts to happen year-round. They’d like to land a Super Bowl here. All very understandable. And all an insult to everything that makes America, well, America.

The Buffalo Bills are building a new stadium without a roof. For a quick reminder, Buffalo NY makes Denver look like Pasadena. Colorado is home to dueling cowboys, towering, rugged mountain peaks where the battle of the fittest plays its life-and-death game and men don’t lift their little pinky when they drink coffee.

Are we going to be out macho-ed by, by, well, New Yorkers?

Maybe a tax subsidy to make the stadium open-air could fit into my libertarian mindset somehow. I’ll ask our “libertarian” governor for advice.