Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

Tag: Taxpayers

Colorado Lawmakers Receive Quiet Back Door Pay Raises Through Commission Process
No Comments
Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Lawmakers Receive Quiet Back Door Pay Raises Through Commission Process

By: Jon Caldara | Commentary, Complete Colorado I am personally responsible for helping overpay socialists to make Colorado unaffordable, overregulated and one windstorm away from a power blackout. I failed you. Colorado legislators already get automatic inflation raises. You know, just like your job (I’m assuming the sarcasm bled through that one). No private-sector worker has that kind of protection forever. Even union jobs eventually meet reality. Ask Spirit Airlines employees. And that’s the problem. What happens when lawmakers no longer depend on the private sector for most of their livelihood? They stop understanding the people they supposedly represent. They get disconnected. And has Colorado ever had more of a disconnected team of politicia...
Read More
Lakewood taxpayers face 30-year shelter obligation after city grant deal
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, Local

Lakewood taxpayers face 30-year shelter obligation after city grant deal

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project From a recent edition of the Lakewood Informer (copied here with links intact): “Lakewood purchased 8000 W Colfax Avenue to use as an emergency shelter and Navigation Center using a grant from the state to fund the property purchase and renovation. As a condition to getting the grant, Lakewood committed the property to shelter use for 30 years. No public discussion about this condition occurred when City Council authorized the purchase. At an annual operating cost of $3,000,000, that’s a $90,000,000 commitment that was not disclosed to the public. That makes the Center severely underfunded, with declining neighborhood support, and may be one reason for the proposed city sales tax hike.” This was startling to ...
Read More
Colorado Tax Data Raises Questions About Calls For Higher Taxes On Wealthy
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, State

Colorado Tax Data Raises Questions About Calls For Higher Taxes On Wealthy

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Colorado’s “rich” are already paying a lot (A LOT) Tax Day, both the day when tax returns are due and the day at which you have worked enough to pay your taxes (and start working for yourself) recently passed. Around that date I saw something online giving a breakdown of Federal tax receipts vs. income group and it got me thinking about Colorado’s tax receipts vs. income. After doing some digging I have some data to share, and, as the top line here suggests, the “rich” in Colorado are already paying quite a bit. Certainly a giant percent of state revenue compared to how many filers there are. As I’ll show below, if you look at the percentage of total tax receipts vs. the percentage of taxpayers ...
Read More
Colorado Program For Immigrant Children And Pregnant Women Blows Past Cost Estimates By 611%
No Comments
The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Program For Immigrant Children And Pregnant Women Blows Past Cost Estimates By 611%

By Jesse Paul and John Ingold | The Colorado Sun The state predicts that the Covering All Coloradans program will cost Colorado $104.5 million in the fiscal year that began July 1. Nonpartisan fiscal analysts estimated the cost would be $14.7 million. roviding health care to children and pregnant people who would qualify for Medicaid if not for their immigration status will cost Colorado more than six times what was projected this year.  Because of higher-than-forecast enrollment, the state is expecting that the Cover All Coloradans program will cost the state $104.5 million in the fiscal year that began July 1. When Democratic state lawmakers passed a bill in 2022 launching the health insurance safety net initiative, nonpartisan fiscal analysts estima...
Read More
Taxpayers Left Holding the Bag After $2 Billion Solar Project Fails
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, National

Taxpayers Left Holding the Bag After $2 Billion Solar Project Fails

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com A decade ago, three giant companies took advantage of federal incentives to build the world’s largest solar power plant in the Mojave Desert, known as Ivanpah. It was “the wave of the future,” a new technology that focuses 300,000 computer-controlled mirrors to reflect solar rays onto three boiler towers, each the height of a 40-story building. The water inside is heated to produce steam that can generate 392 megawatts, enough electricity to power 140,000 homes. Supposed to last 30 years or more, the technology is already considered obsolete. Obama Administration loan guarantees financed three-fourths of the $2.2 billion cost, making it a safe investment for the three owners – Google, BrightSource Energy, and NRG Energy. I wrote a column ...
Read More
Section 8 Pays Colorado Rents Near $4,000 Per Month as Critics Call for Reform
No Comments
State, Approved, The Center Square

Section 8 Pays Colorado Rents Near $4,000 Per Month as Critics Call for Reform

By Kenneth Schrupp | The Center Square (The Center Square) - Taxpayers are covering rents of up to $3,879 per month in Colorado, leading taxpayer advocates to question the growing duration of federal Section 8 housing choice voucher (HCV) usage. "Section 8 needs to focus on lifting people out of the trap of poverty, not putting them into the lap of luxury," said National Taxpayers Union president Pete Sepp in an interview with The Center Square. "It's unfair to ask taxpayers who can't afford mortgages or rents of nearly $4,000 per month to foot the bill for subsidies amounting to that much." HCV recipients remain in the program for an average of 15.1 years – that’s up from an average of 12.4 years in 2000, according to a 2024 federal report. When asked about a 2026 budget propo...
Read More
Gazette editorial board: Sanctuary policies cost Denver taxpayers—again
No Comments
Approved, denvergazette.com, Local, National

Gazette editorial board: Sanctuary policies cost Denver taxpayers—again

The Gazette editorial board | Denver Gazette Say what you will about the Trump administration, but give it credit for sparing U.S. taxpayers from bailing out cities whose sanctuary policies made them magnets for illegal immigration. The fact that Denver is among those cities isn’t Washington’s fault. It’s Mayor Mike Johnston’s. And the fact that Denver now likely won’t be reimbursed some or all of $32 million it had forced local taxpayers to pony up in welcoming the latest wave of illegal immigrants, as reported by The Gazette, is Johnston’s comeuppance. It’s also Denver taxpayers’ loss. The Mile High mayor who showboated before a congressional panel in Washington last March — and sanctimoniously pronounced, “… Denver made a choice as a city not to hate each other but to help e...
Read More
Did Grand Junction’s City Council enable a pay-to-play deal?
No Comments
Approved, Local, Rocky Mountain Voice, Top Stories

Did Grand Junction’s City Council enable a pay-to-play deal?

By Jen Schumann | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice When the City of Grand Junction accepted a $3 million donation from Intermountain Health (St. Mary’s Hospital) in exchange for naming rights to its new Community Recreation Center (CRC), the deal looked like a win for the community.  But behind that vote lies a contract process that critics say gave some bidders an unfair advantage — a deal many providers never had a fair shot at. A formal ethics complaint filed with the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission (CIEC) accuses city officials of shaping a public request for proposals (RFPs) in a way that prioritized money over merit.  Among concerns that contributions guided the RFP process, there’s also allegations that some engaged in negotiating discussions lo...
Read More
Trump orders agencies to stop taxpayers’ funding for illegal migrants
No Comments
Approved, Breitbart, National

Trump orders agencies to stop taxpayers’ funding for illegal migrants

By Neil Munro | Breitbart President Donald Trump has ordered his agencies to scrub their regulations and spending programs to ensure illegal migrants are not getting taxpayers’ funds via hidden channels. Trump signed the Executive Order titled “Preserving Federal Benefits for American Citizens” late on Wednesday. The policy could save tens of billions of dollars per year. But the full economic impact will not be known for many months because Trump’s deputies must find the aid programs, change policies to stop some funding. fend off lawsuits, and then gradually rewrite regulations to stop more funding. READ THE FULL STORY ON BREITBART
Read More
Why lawmakers are afraid 24k Coloradans may disappear in the next budget year, and with them $77M
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Why lawmakers are afraid 24k Coloradans may disappear in the next budget year, and with them $77M

By Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun Nearly 24,000 Coloradans are set to disappear from the state’s population this year — at least as far as the state budget is concerned. It’s no mere illusion. The vanishing act will have real consequences for public services, to the tune of $77 million in required cuts, if lawmakers don’t take action to prevent it. The issue dates all the way back to when the legislature first implemented the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 1993, the year after voters added it to the state constitution. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More

FD863768-0ACF-495E-9D21-2EF784DFFA6B[1]

Join us at RMV's Freedom Festival

Click Here for Tickets!

This will close in 0 seconds