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Colorado Progressive Tax Plan Raises Long-Term Bracket Creep Concerns
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Progressive Tax Plan Raises Long-Term Bracket Creep Concerns

By Nash Herman | Complete Colorado Proponents of a progressive state income tax claim that it will give most Coloradans a break on their taxes.   Those familiar with history, inflation, and bracket creep see a much different long-term picture.   Repeating history The US adopted a federal income tax in 1913, justified by the claim that only about one percent of the population would pay the tax in its earliest years.  Does this sound familiar?   Proponents of Initiative 195, the ballot measure to switch Colorado’s 4.4 percent flat income tax rate to a progressive tax, are adamant that the measure is fair because 97 percent of filers will receive a tax cut.  READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT COMPLETE COLORAD...
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Colorado SNAP Error Rate Could Leave Taxpayers Paying Millions More
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado SNAP Error Rate Could Leave Taxpayers Paying Millions More

By: Logan McCahill | Complete Colorado For the first time since the Great Recession, 1 in 10 Coloradans are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. The federally subsidized program provides families below a government-established income level with food benefits to help with grocery bills. Starting in October of 2027, Colorado will begin paying a share of these benefits due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The amount taxpayers will owe depends on how many people participate in SNAP and how accurately the state processes them, both of which are growing issues for Colorado.   Rising enrollment Between 2020 and 2025, SNAP enrollment grew more than six times faster than Col...
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Missed Insurance Deadline Could Leave Jeffco Taxpayers Paying $15 Million Sex Abuse Settlement
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Missed Insurance Deadline Could Leave Jeffco Taxpayers Paying $15 Million Sex Abuse Settlement

By Matt Kyle | The Denver Gazette Taxpayers may end up on the hook for a child sexual assault settlement, possibly worth up to $15 million, after Jeffco Public Schools failed to notify its insurance company in a timely manner about the case. The incident stems from the Imagine Kay Ewer case. Ewer, a former paraprofessional in the district, groomed and sexually abused a special needs student for several months in 2023. Ewer pleaded guilty in 2024 to criminal charges for providing drugs and alcohol, and engaging in several sexual acts with the then-16-year-old disabled student.  Ewer received a four-year prison sentence followed by 10-years-to-life probation last year. According to documents obtained by The Denver Gazette, Jeffco and its legal couns...
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Denver Ballot Measure Will Determine Xcel Partnership As Millions In Revenue Are At Stake
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Denver Ballot Measure Will Determine Xcel Partnership As Millions In Revenue Are At Stake

By: Deborah Grigsby | The Denver Gazette This November, Denver voters will decide whether to renew the city’s longstanding franchise agreement with Xcel Energy. Members of the Denver City Council approved on Monday sending a proposed 20-year franchise agreement with Xcel that would deliver more than $180 million a year in franchise fees, infrastructure relocation savings and other undergrounding funds to the ballot. The vote was 10-2 with Councilmembers Shontel Lewis and Sarah Parady holding the two dissenting votes. “Denver has negotiated the strongest energy partnership agreement in the history of Colorado, and importantly, the benefits of this agreement and of being a franchisee extend far beyond any of the individual listed improvements and accomplishments,”...
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Trump Rolls Out Self-Funding Immigration Fee System With Tougher Enforcement
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Just The News, Approved, National

Trump Rolls Out Self-Funding Immigration Fee System With Tougher Enforcement

By Amanda Head | Just the News The new fees, including a $100 charge to apply for asylum and annual penalties for pending cases, also become a self-funding hammer to enforce stricter borders and deter abuse in a system that President Donald Trump has long derided as broken. On Wednesday, the Trump administration gave notice of the start of a sweeping array of new immigration fees, creating a no-lose scenario where the new fees either deter applicants from coming, thus reducing immigration, or they proceed with their application, putting more money into resources to scrutinize claims. The rollout, triggered by notices under last year's “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed last year, layers fresh costs onto everything from work permits for protection seekers to juv...
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Colorado Lawmakers Receive Quiet Back Door Pay Raises Through Commission Process
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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...
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Lakewood taxpayers face 30-year shelter obligation after city grant deal
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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 ...
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Colorado Tax Data Raises Questions About Calls For Higher Taxes On Wealthy
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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 ...
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Colorado Program For Immigrant Children And Pregnant Women Blows Past Cost Estimates By 611%
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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...
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Taxpayers Left Holding the Bag After $2 Billion Solar Project Fails
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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 ...
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