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Tag: Government spending

Ballot Bait-and-Switch? Colorado Gray Wolf Plan Bleeds Taxpayers Dry
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State, Approved, CBS News

Ballot Bait-and-Switch? Colorado Gray Wolf Plan Bleeds Taxpayers Dry

By Shaun Boyd | CBS News Colorado Parks and Wildlife told an interim legislative committee it has spent about $3 million to relocate 30 wolves to the state over the last two years. That's more than double what voters were told it would cost when they approved wolf reintroduction in 2020. The Blue Book estimated it would cost about $800,000. Ranchers say, not only is the cost of the program out of control, the management of it is off the rails. "A depredating pack was known to have depredated in Oregon before they put them in Middle Park," Tom Harrington, a cattle producer in Roaring Fork Valley, told lawmakers. "They had serious impact there. They packaged them up, put them away for awhile. And then, they put them back out -- right in my backyard." Harrington and other ranch...
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Denver workers brace for major layoffs amid $250M budget deficit
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DENVER7, Local

Denver workers brace for major layoffs amid $250M budget deficit

By Brandon Richard | Denver7 DENVER — Denver city leaders are preparing to make "substantial" layoffs in order to deal with a massive budget deficit. In May, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced the city was projecting a $50 million budget deficit this year and a $200 million budget deficit next year. Johnston said his administration must consider layoffs to help the city balance next year’s budget. “We will have to look at layoffs,” Johnston said. “We do not envision a scenario where it's possible to right-size this budget without that impact on personnel.” On Wednesday, city leaders were more definitive about layoffs. “They are absolutely happening and they're going to be substantial,” said Karla Pierce, a city employment attorney. The city has not officially ...
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Gazette editorial board: Time to repeal the delivery fee feeding Colorado’s bloated government
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Approved, Commentary, denvergazette.com, State

Gazette editorial board: Time to repeal the delivery fee feeding Colorado’s bloated government

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 c...
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Chai: Big lies about the Big Beautiful Bill? Miller says facts say otherwise
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Approved, National, The Western Journal

Chai: Big lies about the Big Beautiful Bill? Miller says facts say otherwise

By Bryan Chai | Commentary, The Western Journal They often say light is the best disinfectant, and whomever “they” are, they’re right. In a related note, it’s pretty clear that most Americans — this writer included — are in the complete dark about the “Big Beautiful Bill” that keeps making the headlines. If you were to consume your news exclusively from the establishment (my sincerest condolences if that’s the case), you would think the bill was some sort of hypothetical bogeyman, a looming Sword of Damocles over the U.S. economy. It’s all a “big risk,” if you want to take the liberal Washington Post at its word. Thankfully, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — a longtime advisor to President Donald Trump — is shedding some light on it all, and i...
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Gaines: Phil Weiser spends your tax dollars suing Trump and backing gun control
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Colorado Accountability Project, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

Gaines: Phil Weiser spends your tax dollars suing Trump and backing gun control

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project There but for the grace of God goes Colorado I was corresponding with someone recently and they mentioned something interesting. This person is a lawyer and said they were in a 10th circuit (Federal) courtroom recently and overheard an appellate case out of New Mexico about gun control. I am not sure if you remember, but New Mexico's governor made quite a splash a while back by declaring a public health emergency related to guns, trying essentially to use that to take away the Second Amendment rights of the citizens of that state. Those orders, and later iterations of same, have been working their way through the courts ever since. The first link below is to that case if you're curious. This person asked a neighbor...
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Hillman: Fiscal tailgating put Colorado in the ditch
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Approved, Commentary, denvergazette.com, State

Hillman: Fiscal tailgating put Colorado in the ditch

By Mark Hillman | Denver Gazette Headlines from the state Capitol might cause a reader to believe Colorado is in a deep recession. Legislators say they must cut more than $1 billion in spending to balance the 2025-26 budget. Still, state government has $687 million more to spend than last year in a $19 billion budget. So why all the histrionics about a budget “crisis”? Because Colorado lawmakers practice fiscal tailgating. Tailgating on the highway is dangerous because when drivers travel too fast and follow too close to the car ahead, the tailgating driver doesn’t have time to react if the lead driver unexpectedly brakes or swerves. Fiscal tailgating is much the same. Lawmakers spend money as fast as it comes in, then when the economy slows, they face much harder choices th...
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City of Rifle blasts state for misusing severance tax dollars
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Approved, Local, Post Independent

City of Rifle blasts state for misusing severance tax dollars

By Katherine Tomanek | Post Independent A letter to state Sen. Marc Catlin and state Rep. Elizabeth Velasco has been prepared by the city staff of Rifle regarding the diversion of Local Government Severance Tax Funds to address budget shortfalls at the state government level.  The Local Government Severance Tax Fund was originally created to help support communities  impacted by resource extraction activities, like oil and gas, which sometimes leads to a “boom and bust” economy of those communities. The “bust” of that equation was to be offset by the Local Government Severance Tax Fund.  The city of Rifle relies on the Energy Impact Assistance Fund (EIAF) from the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) for their projects. Some of these funds include $1 million for the R...
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Rep. Gonzalez: Colorado doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Rep. Gonzalez: Colorado doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem

By Rep. Ryan Gonzalez | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice In the state of Colorado, we are facing over a $1.2 BILLION dollar shortfall. As we are now halfway through the 2025 legislative session, we have seen little progress from the lawmaking majority on making hard and significant cuts to our budget.  Rather than admit the improper allocation of taxpayer dollars, the majority uses this predicament to go after and attack our Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR).  Our state budget this year is over 43 BILLION. In the last 6 years they have gone from a budget surplus to a very progressive spending spree at the expense of taxpayers.  More offices, tax credits, and programs that require funding and eat away at TABOR refunds have been – and continue to be –  the...
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U.S. government dropped millions on media outlet Politico. Here’s what they spent it on
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Approved, National, The Daily Caller

U.S. government dropped millions on media outlet Politico. Here’s what they spent it on

By Robert McGreevy | Daily Caller U.S. government agencies have dropped a staggering $34 million in contracts with Virginia-based news outlet Politico, mostly on subscriptions, according to data from USASpending.gov. The payments vary in size and scope and come from virtually every government agency. The Department of the Interior‘s (DOI) National Park Service awarded a contract worth $862,025 over a period between 2021 and 2025 for subscriptions to Politico’s Energy and Environment (E&E) News service. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, another DOI subsidiary, also made a purchase order of $455,140 to Politico for an “online news subscription” over a similar timeframe. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE DAILY CALLER
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Trump administration orders pause on all federal grants and loans
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Approved, DENVER7, National

Trump administration orders pause on all federal grants and loans

By Scripps News Staff | Denver 7 The White House is taking drastic measures to control trillions of federal dollars by ordering a freeze on all federal grants and loans so President Donald Trump's administration can review government spending. The temporary pause is slated to go into effect Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET and blocks the disbursement of nearly all federal funding. The order also directs all federal agencies to submit detailed reports on "any programs, projects or activities subject to this pause" by no later than Feb. 10, 2025. "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve," Office of Management and Budget Actin...
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