GregWalcher.com - Rocky Mountain Voice

Walcher: Want to fix Congress? Break the budget process first

GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National / May 15, 2025 / Appropriations Reform, Budget Transparency, Congressional Budget, Continuing Resolutions, DOGE, Federal Spending, Fiscal Accountability, Line Item Budgeting

A popular blogger called Taylor Cone gave some great advice for budding inventors, discussing the process of prototyping: build it, then break it, then fix it. That’s a strategy Congress ought to try.

The House Appropriations Committee, Congress’s most powerful panel, has 63 members, only 8 of whom have ever voted to do what the law requires of them, namely, to pass 12 appropriation bills to fund government agencies and programs. In fact, Congress has passed the required bills on time only 4 times in the last 40 years, the last time 26 years ago. Only 25 of the 435 House members and 8 of the 100 Senators were even in Congress then, all of them now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. They may not even remember how it was supposed to work.

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Walcher: The “sky is falling” water narrative doesn’t hold water

GregWalcher.com, Approved, National, State / May 7, 2025 / Bureau of Reclamation, Colorado River, Environmental regulation, Government overreach, Resource management, Water rights

Every year for the past 25, at least, negotiating teams for the seven states on the Colorado River have worked to overcome a new crisis, invariably driven by two entities: the State of California and the federal Bureau of Reclamation (BOR).

For a quarter-century, those teams have responded to federal pressure based on the dubious theory that an ongoing drought, and a resulting decline in the river’s flow, somehow changed the law and gave BOR authority to ignore the Interstate Compact.

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Walcher: We built it, and they still won’t come

GregWalcher.com, Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice / April 29, 2025 / Economic development, Government overregulation, Housing Crisis, Land use policy, Mesa County, Permitting reform

Building a new subdivision is complicated. Almost every city and county in America have master plans dictating “conforming uses” of land. Most specify lot and home sizes, rules for vehicle access, water supply, sewage disposal, flood control, affordable housing, and park space. Those are addressed in lengthy application processes and public hearings, all preceding building the infrastructure, and then the homes.

The National Association of Home Builders says government regulations account for 24 percent of the final price of new homes. Sixty percent of that comes during planning and development, only 40 percent during actual construction.

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