The Gazette editorial board | Commentary, Denver Gazette
Do you use DoorDash for lunch or maybe Uber Eats for dinner? How about Amazon, FedEx or any of the other delivery services — for just about everything else?
Probably.
Have you ever noticed a 29-cent “retail delivery fee” on your tab once your order was fulfilled?
Probably not. After all, it’s only a fraction of the price you paid for whatever was delivered, so even if you did see it, you likely shrugged it off as just another one of the taxes assessed on your order.
Which, in reality, it is. But technically, it’s not a tax; it’s a “fee” that was slapped on deliveries by the Legislature in 2021. And because it was designated as a fee in statute, it didn’t require statewide voter approval as a tax would under our state constitution.
Its purpose was to help fund a promised, big leap forward for Colorado’s transportation grid. It was enacted under omnibus legislation that had won cautious support from the business community and other stakeholders at the time.
Despite the bill’s dubious funding sources, The Gazette editorial board reluctantly endorsed it, as well, in the hope it at long last would kick-start urgently needed, long-sidelined highway projects.
Indeed, a key selling point of Senate Bill 21-260 was to fund upgrades and upkeep for our state’s highways, i.e. — the transportation almost all Coloradans rely on and really need. It also was intended to enhance other transportation modes that have varying degrees of real-world relevance, from electric-car charging stations to bike paths — and that perennial pipe dream of transportation planners firmly rooted in utopia, mass transit.
As each year has passed since Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law, the outcome has been ever more disappointing. His administration, notoriously anti-car, has continued to put the squeeze on highway funding in favor of alternative transportation. Critics now say the governor’s original pitch for SB 21-260 was a bait and switch all along.
Which is why, despite our original support for the measure, we only can welcome a new citizens initiative to repeal the retail delivery fee. Now pending before state election officials, the proposal awaits their approval so organizers can start circulating petitions to place it on next year’s statewide ballot.
It’s a good thing, of course, Colorado taxpayers can use the ballot to rein in our free-spending, fee-imposing Legislature. But it’s also a pity.
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Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.