Freedom Unaffiliated

By Mike Rosen

President Trump’s recent executive order to cut off the federal subsidy for NPR and PBS generated a storm of outrage from the left. Predictably, the usual suspects staged demonstrations and NPR, PBS and Democrats have counterattacked with lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Trump’s order.

NPR and PBS aren’t identical twins. So, let’s call them fraternal twins in their common political and cultural mentality and the leftist bias they spread on a daily basis on their political and cultural broadcast platforms.

They falsely claim this is a First Amendment issue about free speech. To borrow a Joe Bidenism, “that’s malarky.” If the twins are denied taxpayer dollars, they’d still be free to broadcast their progressive and woke propaganda over the airwaves, just without taxpayer dollars. For Democrats and the left, defending the twins isn’t a matter of principle or the law, it’s strictly a matter of political self-interest protecting their propaganda megaphones. And the government connection allows the twins to claim they are duty bound to be ideologically and politically balanced. Given their glaring liberal bias, they’re both guilty of dereliction of that duty.

NPR’s news, analysis and opinion programs are mostly unlistenable for conservatives, Republicans and open-minded independents on shows like “Morning Editon” and especially “All (leftist) Things Considered,” which NPR boasts is “the most listened to afternoon radio program in the country,” which Democrats savor. Uri Berliner a former business editor for NPR resigned last year after publicly criticizing the network’s news coverage as reflecting a “rigid progressive ideology,” with editorial positions in the D.C. area filled by 87 registered Democrats and 0 Republicans.

PBS’s programming is less political than NPR’s although still left-leaning. But most of its drama and entertainment offerings are excellent and enjoyed by conservatives and liberals alike, such as “Masterpiece Theater, ” with series like “Downton Abbey,” “Wolf Hall,” and “All Creatures Great and Small.”

The doomsday predictions about the death of NPR and PBS and the end of classical music broadcasting are laughable. Even if their federal subsidies ― which constitute a relatively small share of their revenues ― were eliminated, the twins would still exist. Contributions and membership fees from their faithful listeners would continue and likely increase. Any void would easily be filled by leftist foundations, corporations, activist groups, labor unions, Democrats, or George Soros who value this broadcast platform far too much to let it die.

In 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minow famously declared that TV programming was a “vast wasteland” of senseless violence, mindless comedy and offensive advertising. That ultimately provided an excuse for government to subsidize programming that people ought to watch through the Public Broadcasting Act passed by Congress in 1967 creating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which remains the banker of PBS and NPR, founded in 1970.

But 1970 was more than half a century ago. Back then your TV set had maybe ten channels, and Cable TV was just getting started. People didn’t have personal computers or smart phones, no iPads, no Internet, no podcasts, and no social media. (We did have libraries.) Today, with satellites and streaming, there are limitless outlets to hear or watch quality content; virtually anything from news, to opinion, to entertainment, classical music, etc. along with an even “vaster wasteland” of crap. There’s no need or justification for government to subsidize any of this or NPR, PBS and CPB.

Among Trump’s barrage of executive orders, those that pertain strictly to the executive branch have generally withstood challenges in court. This one, while objectively warranted as a public policy issue, may well be struck down by the courts since NPR, PBS and CPB were created by an act of Congress. In that event, Congress could defund all of those through legislation. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely. With a slim Republican majority in both houses, Democrats would likely kill the bill with a Senate filibuster, and Republicans lack the 60 votes required to overcome that. But as I’ve explained, even if Congress were to pass such legislation, NPR and PBS would still be on the air.

Based on the outcome of the last election, arguably a great part of the public recognizes and objects to the leftist bias of the news and opinion elements of NPR and PBS. On principle, a quote from Thomas Jefferson applies to this issue: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” That justifies removing NPR, PBS and CPB from the taxpayers’ teat.

By Mike Rosen

The multiculturalism movement is a cancer disguised as a cure. It claims that learning more about minorities would elevate them and improve national harmony, and opening our borders to people from other countries will enrich us as they combine their cultures with ours. Our public schools enthusiastically embraced this, deemphasizing reading, writing, and arithmetic to fill the vacuum with “social justice.” Colleges created new departments for ethnic studies, black studies, Latino studies, etc.

Multiculturalism isn’t innocent or apolitical. It was a planned early stage ― DEI was the next stage ― in the “fundamental transformation of America” (the goal proclaimed by President Obama) into a globalist socialist utopia. Radical left-wing academics who relentlessly denigrate our history by obsessing on our sins while ignoring our many more virtues also championed multiculturalism as a means to that end. (What nation’s history is without sin?) This strategy has been effective in the left’s indoctrination and recruitment of callow idealistic students.

In practice, multiculturalism doesn’t lead to national harmony, just the opposite. It spawned identity politics, tribalism, divisiveness and has undermined national unity. Americans don’t need a hyphen to describe themselves. Nobody whose ancestors came from England 400 years ago calls himself an English-American today. Why would a black man whose Swedish grandfather became a U.S citizen in the 20th century be called African-American?

Our nation has traditionally been a “melting pot” where newcomers and their descendants assimilate into our culture. Fifth-generation Americans with Italian roots, for example, might call themselves Italian-Americans on some occasions but they speak English, are proud to be American, and may have ancestors who fought for the U.S. against Italy in World War II. The Left weaponizes multiculturalism to reject assimilation in order to divide our people. The Marxists among them deploy multiculturalism in the Leninist strategy of permanent revolution to overthrow capitalism.

Multiculturalists would replace our melting pot with a “salad bowl” of identity politics. But salads can become disharmonious. I prefer iceberg lettuce and discriminate against arugula which is better suited for grazing cows. Barbecue sauce is unwelcome in a Ceasar salad.

Diversity makes sense in an investment portfolio but can go way too far in a country. Europe has been devastated by a tsunami of immigrants, many of whom refuse to assimilate, especially Muslims. In France, Parisian suburbs like Seine-Saint Denis have effectively become separate Islamic societies where Sharia law has displaced French civil law and police are afraid to go. Denmark banned Muslim face coverings to crack down on the crime wave, has “No Ghetto” policies to prevent the growth of immigrant enclaves, and now aims at “zero migration.” Britain’s socialist Prime Minister Keir Starmer ― once an avowed multiculturalist ― recently declared that its experiment with open borders is turning the nation into an “island of strangers” with “forces that are slowly pulling our country apart.”

Countries have borders to protect their sovereignty, for national defense, and to block unwanted individuals. Historically, the U.S. has imposed limits to immigration allowances among countries to balance it out. Now, that’s diversity. Instead of America’s great advantage of a common language, multiculturalism taken to its ultimate destination would substitute a virtual Tower of Babel.

Former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, a Democrat before they turned radically left, was leery of multiculturalism warning that “diverse peoples worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other, that is when they’re not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent.”

I’ve been to about 70 countries. I’m intrigued by their sights, people, governments, histories, cuisines, and cultures. I like some better than others, and some not at all. But I prefer our culture, system of government and economy, and I don’t want our culture to be overwhelmed by mass immigration. I favor assimilation. I’m not opposed to immigration. I am opposed to unlimited and illegal immigration, regardless of nationality or race. That’s a vital distinction Mexican-American columnist Rubin Navarette routinely ignores when he falsely labels as racists those who oppose illegal immigration ― especially if the illegals are Latinos.

All of the world is not wonderful. World citizenship is a delusion and a path to open borders. It would require a world government and a world military. The United Nations is a farce. Imagine the compromises America’s representative to a World Constitutional Convention would have to make to satisfy China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Our Constitution would be trashed.

And why do multiculturalists cheer when they’re told that whites will soon no longer be a majority in the U.S? Isn’t that racist?

By Jon Caldara

This column is targeted to one reader: the iconoclast businessman and politico Kent Thiry.

Many believe Colorado’s best days are behind her, and understandably so as Colorado turns into a dictatorial progressive experiment of exponentially escalating regulation, spiraling property taxes and fees, and forced social engineering.

We don’t feel safe on our own city streets. Young people can’t buy their own homes. Affordable and reliable energy is no more. Small businesses are dwindling under the new minimum wages and the epidemic costs of regulatory compliance. Road funding is stolen for unused transit, making our roadways third-world, strangling commutes and commerce. And the woke agenda is codified not only in school curriculum but now with “misgendering” speech control laws.

Our state balances on a knife’s edge, tipping toward economic collapse, a la California, New York and Illinois. No wonder more and more of our productive class is pulling up stakes and moving to Florida or Texas where their talents will be encouraged to thrive.

But I think Colorado can be saved. The first step is changing election law.

You’d think Colorado’s decline is plainly obvious and, therefore, average Coloradans would stop voting for socialist-leaning Democrats and start voting for Republicans. You’d be wrong.

Colorado’s rural districts will remain Republican, as urban districts remain progressive Democrat. The fight for Colorado’s future is, as it always has been, in the swing suburban districts. I’m talking Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson, and now Douglas and El Paso counties.

For the next several election cycles, these swing district voters will still largely be repulsed by Republican candidates. Chock-full of single moms, these suburban voters equate “Republican” with “Trump.” And they hate President Donald Trump, sometimes becoming unhinged. Their hatred of his personality turns to hatred of his political party. To them, “Republican” is anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-cannabis and anti-environment. They are pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-weed and, until the blackouts hit, believe climate change is Colorado-, not China-caused.

Next year’s election, President Trump’s midterm, should be a bloodbath for Colorado Republicans. Any candidate running with an “R” behind his name in swing districts might as well have a swastika there instead.

But here’s the interesting part: These swing voters, though pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-weed and pro-environmentalist, are not pro-crime, pro-tax, pro-regulation or pro-woke. They still won’t vote Republican, but they know, and often admit, Colorado’s leftist one-party tyrannical state is going too far.

These swing voters feel uncomfortable with both parties. That’s why now an unheard of 50% of all Colorado registered voters are independent, unaffiliated with any party. It’s why Colorado’s second-largest city has an unaffiliated mayor. They crave something that’s not R or D. Colorado could well become the nation’s first independent or unaffiliated state.

They hate the moralism of the Republicans and the fiscal carelessness and wokeness of the left. I label them as “Freedom Unaffiliateds,” which shortens to “FU.” And these people want to say FU to both parties.

But, unless Thiry changes how primaries are done, these Freedom Unaffiliateds will keep begrudgingly voting socialist Democrat over moralist Republican.

Thiry designed and funded the popular 2016 citizen’s initiative letting unaffiliated voters vote in either Republican or Democratic primaries. But he bit off more than Colorado voters were willing to chew with his initiative last year. It would have created a jungle primary system and then ranked-choice voting for the top four candidates in the general election.

Coloradans are suspicious of ranked-choice voting. But jungle primaries, where candidates from all parties, or no party, battle it out in a primary with the top two advancing to the November ballot is ripe for the whole state. Denver’s mayoral election is done this way.

In progressive urban areas it would likely mean two Democrats would be on the general ballot, one farther left than the other. In rural areas, two Republicans.

But it’s the swing districts where this changes everything. Unaffiliated, fiscally conservative, yet morally centrist candidates could finally make it to the fall ballot. And in a two-way race, they could win.

Sane, anti-crime, pro-business independents could caucus with Republicans to make Colorado viable again, and caucus with Democrats to protect social issues.

These could be (cover your ears, Republicans) the electable candidates who could win in swing districts.

But only if Thiry retools his initiative and opens our primaries.

By Mike Rosen

Civil disobedience is a constant of history. Like the Boston Tea Party, a violent symbolic demonstration against British tyranny in 1773 that preceded the American Revolutionary War. An unelected English king appointed English governors who ruled with an iron hand in the colonies. There was taxation without representation and American colonists had no peaceful political recourse.

On the night after Donald Trump’ s first presidential election in November 2016 there were acts of civil disobedience in downtown Denver, with angry, disturbed, Trump-hating Democrats blocking traffic on city streets and near the Broncos stadium on I-25 (where I was personally trapped in my car for most of an hour before the police politely ushered them away.)

Trump’s crime was winning a free and fair election thanks to voters in states other than Colorado. The obvious difference between these two acts of civil disobedience is that unlike the tea partiers, the post-election disruptors of 2016 did have political recourse. Their candidate, Hillary Clinton, simply lost. It was needless to disturb the peace other than for these sore losers to indulge their hurt feelings. Trump’s second coming has been met with a far greater level and degree of outright hatred and violence ― like fire-bombing Elon Musk’s Tesla dealerships for the crime of trying to make government more efficient. Profane postings and threats by many Trump haters on social media and public statements by elected Democrats have encouraged anti-Musk arson and even the outright assassination of the president.

In his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), argued that one should not support a government if it sanctions policies with which one disagrees. His primary cause was the abolition of slavery and his preferred action was civil disobedience. But he also called for those who took that action to willingly accept the consequences, like going to jail.

We got a harrowing taste of civil disobedience during the 2020 BLM Summer of Violence in what its sympathizers dismissed as “mostly peaceful” protests that ransacked stores, besieged police stations, set fire to patrol cars, and ravaged neighborhoods; running up $2 billion in damages. While thousands of arrests were made, only a tiny fraction went to jail or stayed there very long, dodging the consequences part of Thoreau’s tradeoff with woke or progressive prosecutors filing mostly minor charges or none at all.

Serious revolutionary Marxists and this generation’s idealistic college kids indoctrinated in leftist ideology in K-12, higher-ed, liberal media, and social culture are reveling in disruptive protests. And they do want to go to jail. But only for show with a brief visit so they can get the arrest on their record to wear as a protestor badge of honor, the leftist equivalent of an honorable combat campaign ribbon for a soldier. When this fad ends, the kids can get back to protesting against student loans they had promised to repay.

As for the clueless anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrators performing in their trendy keffiyeh scarfs on college campuses who violate the rights of fellow students with their barriers, encampments, and occupation of buildings, it’s strange that many if not most are liberated young women. Perhaps they’ll marry a murderous, Hamas Islamist fundamentalist, intent on exterminating Jews, who’d enclose them in a burqa and physically beat them in keeping with Sharia law.

I’ll concede that Trump has overreached in some of his chaotic multi-front counterattacks on the Democrats’ entrenched bureaucracy and the administrative state (employing tactics he learned from Obama and Biden). Trump will win some battles in congress and legal disputes in the courts all the way up to SCOTUS, and he’ll lose some others. As expected, Democrats have risen in “resistance.” Some are singing idiotic songs in street protests. This is ineffective and embarrassing, but it’s what they do for fun, and it’s a form of psychotherapy. A more effective tool is lawfare, and Democrats are very good at that. But they don’t always win, as Trump has amply shown.

Claims that Trump is “a threat to our democracy” are just silly. Anyone with a basic knowledge of political science and civics knows our system of government isn’t a pure democracy, although it does have some democratic institutions. We’re a constitutional republic with representative government and the rule of law. Trump is no threat to that. The ultimate outcome of his presidency will be decided not by Trump as a dictator, nor by political protests but through our system of checks and balances, the separation of powers, and voters in the mid-term elections.

By Jon Caldara

There are only three jobs worth having in Colorado. The first is fortunately mine.

Any person who can make a living by indulging his passion is beyond blessed. I somehow have provided for my family by fighting for personal and economic freedom in Colorado. Running Independence Institute, Colorado’s machine to promote liberty principles over party, politicians and special interests, is a dream come true.

The next coolest job in Colorado is quarterback for the Denver Broncos, which, by the way, I would be totally awesome at.

The only other job I’d want here would be governor, the most influential and powerful gig for changing policy and shaping the state’s future.

And to be Jared Polis, a near billionaire to boot, would be a rip. I mean, if you can self-fund your elections, you’re not beholden to moneyed special interests owning you. He’s also term limited. He can do what he pleases without regard to it harming any reelection.

So why do I feel sorry for him?

Though he can’t run for governor again, he’s eyeing the U.S. Senate or even the presidency. So, still a politician. And the curse of every politician is the same as that of every middle-school girl. All you care about is what other people think of you.

For nearly seven years now, Jared has been held hostage to the growing socialist-loony fringe of his party. He wants to be the pro-business libertarian he claims to be, but everyone inside Colorado knows he governs anti-liberty progressive.

And now people around the country are learning his spin was just that. Even Reason magazine, who fell for the con years ago, calling him the “libertarian governor,” is retracting the title (a la Steve Harvey announcing the wrong winner of Miss America).

Coming out of another stranger-than-strange, more-left-than-left, liberty-hating, economy-strangling legislative session, our poor governor is faced with political no-win decisions. Should he sign even more economy-killing, liberty-squeezing bills, or veto them?

To his credit, he bravely just vetoed bills to limit governmental transparency and to create a social media nanny state, angering many. Will more vetoes come?

Senate Bill 5 will force non-union workers to pay union dues (which almost all goes into political campaigning) and will drive private businesses to leave for friendlier territory. We’ll join California, New York and Illinois, watching the moving trucks roll to low-tax, worker-protected states like Texas, Tennessee and Florida.

If he signs it, he strangles the state economy and finishes what’s left of being “pro-business.” And the unions will work against him in his next primary.

Handicapped people, the elderly, those without cars and every one of us who have had a few too many rely on Uber and Lyft. If he signs the bill forcing them to outfit cars with recording systems and overly bureaucratic personnel requirements, they said they’d leave the state.

This would delight the taxi cartel and government transit, in other words, the left’s core team. So, it’s mobility, technology and free enterprise versus his beloved planner-state. He must choose.

I really feel sorry for Polis over House Bill 1312, one of the most anti-liberty, anti-child and anti-free speech acts of petulance we’ve ever seen. Veto this bill that punishes “misgendering or deadnaming” and erodes parental rights, and he angers the most-vicious and retribution-crazed wing of his cancel-culture left.

No more Polis Process

The Polis Process has been to take bills that destroy liberty and economic prosperity and get the legislature to water them down before they get to his desk. For example, he’s never wanted to sign a so-called assault weapons bill. No “libertarian” could. So, he gets those civil-rights haters to morph their bills into other god-awful anti-gun bills.

Thus, we have tiptoed our way to a gun-hating Colorado: local control to ban guns, waiting periods, weakening concealed carry rights, increased age limits, more red flag laws and, this year, the nation’s most onerous permitting scheme.

But look, Mom — no assault weapons ban!

This year signaled the last time this “Polis Process” will really be effective. The legislature just doesn’t care what he thinks anymore. He’ll be gone soon. They no longer mind putting him in no-win positions.

Frankly, I’m glad. The Polis Process has resulted in a death by a thousand cuts for our freedoms and our economy while Jared tries to please all the middle school girls.

Sorry, Jared. Time to see what’s more important to you, Colorado or your socialist friends.

By Jon Caldara

Yes, yes — the threat to democracy is President Donald Trump. I’ve read the bumper stickers.

But while we’re all hyperventilating about fascism from the White House, we might want to save some furor for the frontal assault on democracy from the Colorado state legislature. I’m talking attacking actual direct democracy.

To my knowledge, no legislature in the country has passed term limits on themselves. Would you vote yourself out of a job?

But Coloradans overwhelmingly voted for term limits several times at the ballot box. How did the question make it to the ballot? Lawmakers certainly wouldn’t refer it there. We citizens used our constitutional right of direct democracy to petition it there.

Colorado has the nation’s strictest ethics law limiting what elected officials can accept in gifts and travel junkets. Legislators didn’t restrict gifts to themselves. The citizen initiative did.

No lawmaker of either party truly loves the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), forcing them to make difficult spending priority decisions. They certainly abhor our campaign finance limits, unless they’re personally fabulously wealthy (I’m not looking at any sitting governor in particular). We have open meeting laws, allowing us to watch what they are doing.

Lawmakers would never restrict their own power by passing these reforms. These checks on power are made possible only by the initiative, by direct democracy.

It’s little wonder legislators hate, loathe and despise the citizen initiative. So, they continually make the initiative process more cumbersome and expense. Their nonstop war on the process demonstrates not only their elitism but their hatred of democracy. They disenfranchise voters.

Direct democracy is the people changing laws despite those in power. The Colorado Constitution clearly guarantees We the People are every bit part of the legislature, on par with any legislator, via the initiative and referendum.

I have been intimately involved with the initiative process for three decades, placing several successful and a few unsuccessful proposals on the ballot. The cost, hassle and brain damage have never been worse.

Normal, working Coloradans now can’t afford to petition their government anymore. Only moneyed special interests and the wealthy can.

Years ago, the legislature outlawed paying petition gatherers per signature, making the cost to get signatures prohibitive. The federal courts had to strike down the law as a violation of the First Amendment.

The legislature then mandated both proponents of an initiative attend more required meetings in person. Legislators can attend meeting and vote by Zoom, but we citizens can’t. If just one citizen proponent gets stuck in a traffic jam or gets sick, the entire group’s proposal is tossed.

Basically, it means if you live outside of the Denver metro area, your right to petition your government doesn’t really exist. Thomas Jefferson enumerated it as a reason to break from King George in our Declaration of Independence, “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant … for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.”

The requirements on signature gatherers and tedious reporting hurdles continue to spiral out of control.

Recently, the legislature voted to make cutting taxes via the initiative basically impossible. The ballot language is mandated to now contain inaccurate, scare language to frighten voters into voting “no.”

And now this year’s affront to democracy, House Bill 1327, is a smorgasbord of needless ankle-biting mandates made solely to smother our access to democracy.

Among its insults:

• It requires those who submit several proposals go through extra paperwork.
• It requires legislative staff, when they estimate how much money a new tax might bring in, to use their highest possible estimate and that number must be used on the ballot and the blue book. This makes voters think a tax hike will buy more goodies than it likely will (so, they’ve forced scary language on tax cut proposals and happy language on tax increases — convenient).
• It changes the calendar of the initiative process to give proponents less time.
• It requires petition gatherers to do more gratuitous paperwork, which if done improperly costs up to $1,500 to the person who didn’t comply properly. Think of that. Personal $1,500 fines for doing some vague paperwork in a way a bureaucrat didn’t like. That is the definition of disenfranchisement.

It’s fine to fret about President Trump’s threat to democracy. But what does it say when we are complicit in the elitist menace to democracy in our own backyard?

By Mike Rosen

President Trump’s most significant first-term accomplishment was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). It reduced tax rates across all income levels and doubled the standard deduction to $12,000 for single filers ($24,000 for married filing jointly). Consequently millions of lower- and middle-income Americans no longer pay federal income taxes. According to the latest IRS figures, Americans with adjusted gross incomes below $50,000, accounting for 50% of the 161 million tax returns filed pay only a combined 3% of total individual income taxes collected. Most of them pay nothing and some, who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), actually get a “refund” check from the IRS (of taxes they didn’t pay).

Democrats feign outrage that “the rich “ benefited from the tax rate cuts, too. Duh? That’s because upper income Americans pay the bulk of all individual income tax revenue. The top 5% pay 61% of that total, while the top 1% pay 40% of income taxes collected. These are the geese that lay the golden eggs. In return, Democrats would ring their necks.

In their endless pursuit of class warfare and the politics of envy, a constant Democrat tactic is to muddy the waters between reductions in tax rates and tax revenues. Reductions in tax rates do not automatically produce a reduction in tax revenues. It’s often quite the opposite. The TCJA tax rate cuts for all boosted the economy with the prospect of higher after-tax incomes on work and investments, leading to increased federal tax revenues. These same incentives inspired Ronald Reagan’s economic boom driven by fiscal policies that cut tax rates for all and produced an increase in tax revenues. Similarly, JFK cut the top marginal tax rate of 90% down to 70% in the 1960s. Increased tax revenues followed that too.

When the TCJA was passed in 2017, some of its provisions were scheduled to expire after 2025. Fortunately, one provision that was made permanent was the reduction in the top corporate income tax rate from 37% to 21%, matching the European average. That stemmed the tide of corporations moving their headquarters overseas to avoid crippling U.S. taxes and brought many businesses back home, resulting in the doubling of business tax revenues.

The centerpiece of Trump’s proposed “One Big Beautiful Tax Bill,” which congressional Republicans seek to pass, would likewise make permanent the existing TCJA tax rates for individuals. Opposition Democrats are trying to block that, calling them “tax cuts” that will reduce tax revenues (omitting the operative word “rate,” of course). And they’re not tax cuts, they’re just an extension of the same tax rates we’ve had for the last eight years. Democrats would replace this with a tax rate increase, especially on “the rich” and corporations, in line with their inbred socialist obsession.

But the tax rate increase Democrats propose won’t automatically increase tax revenues. It will more likely discourage productive incentives and lead to an economic downturn. It’s the nature of progressive Democrats to prefer incentives that encourage people not to work but rather to become dependent on government handouts instead. This ignores the economic maxim that “what you tax you get less of and what you subsidize you get more of.”

Analogously, when a department store seeks to increase its profits it doesn’t raise prices, rather it holds a big sale and cuts them. The same concept applies to income taxes. Businesses, investors, and individuals care about their after-tax income. Higher tax rates are a disincentive and a price increase on productive work and investments.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) serves Congress in preparing and analyzing the federal budget. Its staff is officially described as “non-partisan” but it tends to lean left, especially when the Democrats are in power. When the CBO scores (or prices) a presidential budget request it prefers a “static” econometric model that assumes reductions in tax rates automatically reduce tax revenues. This is a mathematical assumption, not an economic one.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), serves the president and his budget policies. Under a Republican president, OMB prefers a “dynamic” econometric model that assumes lower tax rates may raise incentives, stimulate economic growth, and produce greater tax revenues. When you hear Democrats and the liberal media mock “trickle-down” economics and falsely claim Trump and Republican policies will reduce tax revenues and widen the deficit, keep that in mind.

By Jon Caldara

TABOR simply means voter consent. TABOR is democracy. Weakening TABOR is weakening democracy.

Every couple of years the spending lobby orchestrates an assault on our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. They are testing another onslaught likely for next year.

I was around for the fights to pass TABOR in the early 1990s. Then- Gov.Roy Romer famously declared if it passed, it will put a “going out of business” sign on the entrance to Colorado.

Oddly, our population has nearly doubled since then, and state spending has ballooned from just more than $6 billion to roughly $44 billion.

Read that headline again. Since TABOR, our population grew one-fold, state spending grew 7-fold. Predictable tax and spending policy helped create a boom.

The opposite of Romer’s scare is true. If we mess with our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, then we might as well put a “going out of business” sign on the entrance to Colorado.

Like telling tales of the boogeyman around the campfire to frighten children, those who feed on unconstrained spending want to scare the kids, too. The young in this case are those who weren’t in Colorado before we demanded simple voter consent over our own money.

Get ready for a new batch of stories on how this Chupacabra of fiscal restraint is somehow making our lives worse, and the only way to slay the monster is to attack democracy and take away our right of consent.

Look no further than U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s announcement of gubernatorial aspiration. The first thing he said was he needs to be governor of Colorado to protect us from the current, unprecedented threat to democracy, being President Donald Trump. The second thing he said was we need to attack democracy to get rid of TABOR. I’m sorry, “reform” TABOR.

He will save our democratic right to vote by taking away our democratic right to vote.

He and the rest of the taking coalition find it nauseating to ask voters for consent to commandeer and spend even more of their livelihoods. They never mention with TABOR they can still grow the size of government as large as they like! All they have to do is — wait for it, because it is so very terrifying — ask us first. 

They can raise the taxes to 100% of what we earn. All they must do is ask us first. Increase debt so much our great-great-great grandchildren will still be paying it off. Just ask our consent.

They refuse to accept that no means no. So, they need to find a way where they no longer must ask at all.

Our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is the very expression of direct democracy. We need to be absolutely clear on what this coming assault against our right to say no is. This is an attack on democracy itself.

They will cleverly find a way to use democracy to kill democracy. To find a way for us to vote against TABOR just once to take away our right to vote forevermore.

Throughout history that is how democracies step aside for tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Putin were legitimately voted into power, only to pervert democracy so they were never threatened by voter consent again.

When power is concentrated, democracy constricts.

The history of TABOR proves it as well. Seven black-shirts have weakened TABOR, not voters. The Colorado Supreme Court have ripped holes through this protection for direct democracy.

TABOR says we get to vote on taxes. The black-shirts ruled calling a “tax” by a different name, “fee,” means we lose our vote. Without a single public vote now nearly three-fourths of what the state spends is “fees.”

TABOR says we get to vote on debt. The black-shirts ruled calling “debt” by a different name, “Certificates of Participation (COPS),” means we don’t get to vote.

TABOR says government can ask us to keep excess tax revenue, but only for four years. The black-shirts ruled “four years” will be interpreted as “forever,” meaning if they can con voters out of their refunds only once, they never need ask again.

And that’s why every couple of years they put something on the statewide ballot to end TABOR refunds forever.

Like a child nagging for a treat, they want to wear us down.

But unlike a child, if we give into this tantrum once, they get all the candy they want, forever.

By Jon Caldara

Hollywood is coming to my hometown. By now you’ve heard the Sundance Film Festival is moving to Boulder.

What a relief! Finally, some common folk are coming to town. As you know, Boulder is home to the state’s most smug elite, those who know how the rest of us should live, what we should value.

And they are thrilled to use government to mandate it upon us.

But starting in 2027, for one glorious week a year, Hollywood types, with their humble, live-and-let-live, limited government views will descend on my little hamlet of progressive hate. People with more common sense and basic American values will finally be walking the streets of my neighborhood. Boulder’s level of arrogance should be cut in half.

It will be so refreshing to hang with thousands of Harvey Weinstein types, who have so much more respect for people.

For one week my hometown won’t be all about virtue signaling. My little metropolis will be visited by normal folks like George Clooney who, next to the average Boulderite, doesn’t need to constantly emote his beliefs and political desires.

Sundance said they moved to Boulder because of its “welcoming environment.” 

Don’t need to be a codebreaker to read between the lines. They wanted to move out of a red state to a pronoun-policed, righteousness infatuated city nestled in a Trump Derangement Syndrome state.

And I don’t mind my wacky town getting wackier for a week. Tens of thousands of mega-wealthy, moralistic, image-obsessed progressives will descend upon the town of mega-wealthy, moralistic, image-obsessed progressives. Maybe I’ll Airbnb my house and make a few bucks. After all the governor’s office says this party will bring in $2 billion of revenue over 10 years. That’s a lot of cheddar.

In fact, that’s why he just signed a bill to give Sundance $35 million out of our massively underfunded state budget.

Wow! Only $35 million to bring in $2 billion! We should make that deal all day long. That’s a 57-fold return on investment. How many of your investments are paying 5700%? I’m guessing less than half?

A 5700% return is known as “economic development math,” which also goes by the street name “complete fiction.”

Before special interests can extract that kind of payoff, they need to give elected officials some political coverage. Economists come up with “multiplier effects” to show us taxpayers we’re not just giving our money to the politically connected, especially during a state budget shortfall.

But wait a second. If the economic benefit is going to bring in $2 billion, why would taxpayers have to put in a penny? Boulder hotels, restaurants, and movie houses would be more than happy to scrape together the kickback for that kind of payout. For $2 billion it’s a no-brainer.

So, either they don’t want to pay it because they can use other people’s money, or they know the return on investment might not actually be 5700%. (It’s both.)

Diffused taxpayers getting their money confiscated and bundled then given to concentrated politically tied special interests is how cronyism works. Thus, the code name “economic development.”

And might there be some conflicts of interest here?

Jared Polis owns property in downtown Boulder, and purportedly income property as well. Instead of tapping taxpayers across the state, our near-billionaire governor could pay a good share of the ransom if he’s getting some of the benefit.

Among all the economic development scams, subsidies to film makers are notoriously the worst. Analysis from New Mexico’s own government discovered their “films subsidies have a negative return on investment.” Now, I’m not a mathematician, but a “negative return on investment” sounds like less than a 5700% return.

New Jersey found that of the $430 million in taxpayer subsidies looked like more than the $300 million earned by all film and video production employees. But then again, Jersey isn’t known for math. Well, maybe the mob accountants.

On behalf of the governor and all the economic winners in Boulder, I like to thank the taxpayers from all the far-flung corners of Colorado who will get almost nothing out of this corporate welfare except some pictures of celebrities in the news. Taxpayers in Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Grand Junction, and every little town in between are paying Robert Redford’s organization to make the state’s richest city just a little more wealthy.

Sounds fair.

By Jon Caldara

With apologies to Pete Seeger, and the 5,000 acts who covered his song.

Where have all the liberals gone?

Long time passing.

Where have all the liberals gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the liberals gone?

Young progressives canceled them, every one.

When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Do you remember liberals, those principled freaks of yesteryear, out of step with mainstream society by demanding free speech for all, including those they didn’t like?

Usually all Democrats, they fought for and won the right to burn the American flag, even though it offended most citizens.

They were so principled in defending a liberal culture they fought for neo-Nazis’ right to parade in places like Skokie Illinois, because even despicable people have a right to say what they want, the way they want to say it.

These liberals angered both social conservatives and feminists by protecting pornographers like Larry Flint of the skin rag “Hustler,” even though they were greatly offended by the misogyny and vulgarity in its pages.

These liberals laughed at jokes by censored comics like Lenny Bruce. They fought for school libraries to have copies of Huckleberry Finn, even if it was replete with the N-word. They populated organizations like the ACLU and People for the American Way.

But these Democrats passed “long time ago.”

Are you old enough to remember them? Here’s a good test. Have you ever heard or said the phrase, “I disagree with what you say but defend to death your right to say it”? If the answer is yes, good chance you’re in a retirement home.

Or maybe this one. Fill in the blank: “The ends don’t justify the ________.” (The answer we were looking for was “means.” The ends don’t justify the … means.)

Modern progressives have rewritten that sacred pledge to read, “The ends justify everything and anything.”

Are there still liberal Democrats in Colorado? Like UFO sightings, there are rumors of their existence but no verifiable proof. If they exist, they are afraid to speak up for fear of being canceled by their socialist, coerced-speech overlords now in power.

And what a shame it is, too. Free speech has never been under attack like it is now. Don’t believe me? Go refuse to bake a cake celebrating something against your religion. By the way, ever notice progressives only sue Christian cake bakers? You’d think Muslim cake bakers are much more likely to refuse to create a cake celebrating a gay marriage. Hmmmmm.

If principled Democrats weren’t hiding themselves like Anne Frank’s family, hoping not to be found and eliminated, they might take after their ancestors and fight coerced speech, like Colorado’s House Bill 1312.

Beyond disempowering parents’ right to raise their own kids and outlawing gender-based uniforms in schools, this bill not only prohibits misgendering or “deadnaming” a person in public, but it also makes it a “discriminatory act” under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.

The pronoun police are becoming the pronoun police, judge and executioner.

Deadnaming is calling someone who has “transitioned” gender by his old name, and with this bill, even if he hasn’t officially changed his name.

Misgendering means referring to a man with gender dysphoria and who identifies as a woman, as, well, a man. In other words, this law would criminalize telling the truth.

That’s worth repeating: The coercion-crazed progressive left is so maniacally out of control they’re making speaking the provable truth a crime. Calling a biological male, by the word “man” would be an unlawful “discriminatory act.” The truth-teller would be open to unknown costs, legal hassles and punishments.

But let’s go down the rabbit hole with Alice for a moment and imagine that when a man identifies as a woman his chromosomes magically change from XY to XX. Calling him a man would then be a hurtful lie. Wait, didn’t the neo-Nazis in Skokie do basically the same, say hurtfully lie saying certain races were genetically inferior?

Back then Democrats fought for free speech so Nazis could lie. Today they coerce speech and make truth a hate crime.

Though calling a trans woman a “biological man” will become a crime, it will still be encouraged to call those of us who use pronouns accurately “ignorant, hater, and fascist.”

Democrat liberals of yore used to call that double-standard “chilling free speech.” And a candy bar cost a dime.