Is a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution the solution to out of control federal spending? Check out this week’s Devil’s Advocate as Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman and Independence Institute Senior Fellow Fred Holden join me to debate the potential merits, and pitfalls, of amending the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. That’s Friday, August 20 at 8:30 PM on Colorado Public Television 12. Re-broadcast the following Monday at 1:30 PM.

If you’re anything like me (and unless your balding and dyslexic you’re not), you hate out of control government spending and love buses. What happens when you combine a hatred of government spending and a love of pure American gas-guzzlers with luxurious bench seating?  The Spending Revolt Bus Tour! The bus tour is hitting the open road this summer and has several stops in Colorado. Tomorrow the 12th, the tour stops in Grand Junction before it continues onward to Dillon and Idaho Springs. Then on Friday the 13th, the bus makes an extended stop in Denver at – yup, you guessed it – the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association (duh) and the Cherry Creek mall. Finally, on Saturday the 14th, the bus heads down to the Springs in the morning.

Show the loony left you love two things they can’t stand – responsible government spending and vehicles that get less than 10 miles to the gallon. Visit the bus tour when it comes near you. Eat your heart out Al Gore.

Our Transparency Czarina Amy Oliver’s campaign to mobilize mothers to take action against our government’s massive deficit spending is well underway with her organization Mothers Against Debt (MAD). All moms should find it disturbing that each baby born today is over $43,000 in the hole before they can even say their first words. If we can’t get Moms “MAD” about that, then I’m not sure what will. (On second thought, leaving the toilet seat up might do the trick). Amanda Teresi, co-founder and president of Liberty on the Rocks, interviewed Amy a couple weeks ago on how Mothers Against Debt got started, how it’s going, and why it is important to get Moms on board. So if you’re a Mom, or know a Mom, watch this interview and get MAD!

I told you last week about our Citizen auditor training series and today marks our foray into the western slope, where our citizen auditor teachers find themselves in Grand Junction. After today, there are still two dates left – one in Colorado Springs on July 29th and the other in Loveland on August 12th. Please make it out to one of these if you can. Aside from learning some super cool skills like wading through the murky waters of the state budget, you can win up to $2,500 in cold hard cash!

However, if you really can’t make it out to train in person, I’m still willing to throw you a bone. Our investigative reporter Todd Shepherd has been THE man to know when it comes to Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requesting. This man knows the CORA statutes like Doug Bruce knows escape routes from subpoenas. The information that floats around in Todd’s head is so valuable, we “talked him into” recording a tutorial video on the how-to’s in filing a CORA request with governments and other public institutions. Check out our CORA class website here, and when you’ve finished the tutorial, join our Google discussion group to learn more and ask any questions you might have.

Now go out and audit government! Because it’s your money they’re spending after all.

If I were going to teach Government 101, the first lesson I’d teach the class would be that the government has no money of its own; it only has what it first takes from us taxpayers. Learning that simple, yet powerful concept is vital to understanding public policy because it pulls the mask off of the cries for more government spending. More government spending ultimately means more wealth taken from those of us who pay taxes. Since government money is in fact OUR money, it becomes obvious that it’s in our interest to make sure that the government spends our money wisely. Every week we hear horror stories of government waste and corruption, but how often do we take a moment to understand that it’s OUR money they are wasting?
Luckily for Colorado taxpayers, Amy Oliver of Colorado Spending Transparency (COST) and Mothers Against Debt always remembers that it is our money they are spending, and reminds us we ought to keep a close eye on how they are spending it.

This is why, with the help of Mothers Against Debt, the Independence Institute, Liberty on the Rocks and Americans for Prosperity, we are sponsoring Citizen Auditor training throughout Colorado. Everything you wanted to know about tracking your money through the bureaucratic nightmare of our state government awaits you in these sessions. After learning how to use the state’s transparency website, how to file Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests, and navigate the unfriendly waters of state and local government budgets, you’ll be ready to set off on your own and be a great citizen auditor.

In fact, those of you who become the best citizen auditors will be rewarded with cash for your efforts! That’s right, we’re going to have a little contest for the best example of wasteful, outrageous government spending uncovered by our new legion of citizen auditors. First place nets a cool $2,500! We’ll also be rewarding a second and third place, plus ten honorable mention prizes. If you’re interested in coming out for some training, we’ll be coming to a town near you.

Dates and locations for training:

Denver: Monday, July 26th, 5 to 7pm, at Pasquinis Restaurant, 8101 E. Belleview Ave. Denver, CO

Grand Junction: Tuesday, July 27th, 6 to 8 pm, at the Old Mesa County Courthouse, Multipurpose Room 544 Rood Avenue (east entrance) Grand Junction, CO

Colorado Springs: Thursday, July 29th, 6 to 8pm, at Rockrimmon Library, 832 Village Center Drive, Colorado Springs, CO

Loveland: Thursday, August 12 5:30 to 7:30pm McGraff’s Restaurant, 1602 East Eisenhower Blvd. Loveland, CO

For more information and to RSVP contact citizenauditor@libertyontherocks.org

Attorney General John Suthers is a very busy man, so we appreciate his taking time out to do a podcast with our Education Policy Center. Ben DeGrow was the lucky one who delivered an informative podcast with the AG about the ongoing Lobato v. State K-12 education funding case.

In this case, the court will determine whether Colorado’s K-12 education funding is spread so thin that schools are not funded adequately – or as the official language goes – education funding is not “thorough and uniform” per the requirement of our state constitution. As Colorado’s attorney, AG Suthers will defend the state in this case against an array of school districts who have signed on as plaintiffs. In the podcast, the AG explains that he has amassed probably the largest amount of school budget data the world has ever known. By looking at how school districts spend money, the state can show that maybe the problem isn’t the funding, but rather, where school districts spend the money they have.

There are a couple of interesting points to make regarding this case. First, a result is not expected for at least a year, maybe two. Secondly, taxpayers are not only funding the defense (as we do anytime the state is sued), but some of us are funding the plaintiffs as well! 18 school districts are suing the state, therefore, 18 school districts’ taxpayers happen to be funding BOTH the prosecution AND the defense! Ouch. And with the case set to go over a year, that’s a whole lot of money going to both sides. It’s almost like we’re suing ourselves! Oh wait, we kind of are. That’s sad…

The Denver Post has a fantastic article today on how the state Department of Revenue is having problems doling out tax refunds and handling a boatload of complaints.  Funny thing is, our investigate reporter Todd Shepherd published nearly the exact same report 6 weeks ago.  On Tuesday, May 4th, Todd published “Complaints Continue to Bubble up Against Department of Revenue,” via our Independence Investigates page.  Once again proving that we at the Independence Institute are ahead of the curve… we’ve been handling a massive amount of complaints and criticism for way longer than the Dept. of Revenue has!

Our friends at the libertarian litigation firm the Institute for Justice (IJ) are trying to fight the insane world of civil asset forfeiture laws. Where the police can take your property without arrest, without prosecution, and without much of a reason. Where you must prove that you are innocent while fighting the presumption of guilt. Talk about turning the justice system on its head! Take a look at how ridiculous this crazy world is in this new IJ video:

In their massive Policing for Profit report, IJ graded each state’s asset forfeiture laws, and how they protect citizen’s property. Unfortunately, only 3 states in the entire country received a grade of “B” or better, with Colorado getting a hard-earned “C.” Our Justice Policy Initiative Director Mike Krause wrote briefly about the report and Colorado’s asset forfeiture laws in this article.

It’s tough being the establishment. Sometimes you have to trash your principles for political purposes. Privacy and choice, ideals once championed by liberals and their progressive allies, have been reduced to quaint notions applicable on politically acceptable occasions now that Democrats are the ruling class.

Take health care in Colorado.  Last year, State Rep John Kefalas sponsored legislation that would have laid “the groundwork” for government-controlled health care, a.k.a. single-payer, to all Coloradans by 2011. It failed even in the Democrat-controlled state legislature.

This year, Kefalas and other Democratic legislators tried a different approach. HB 1330, the All-Payer Health Care Cost Database was signed into law by Governor Ritter on May 26. The bill grants unlimited power to the Executive Director of Health Care Policy and Financing to mandate the collection of any and all health care data, to conduct audits, to give the data to third parties without seeking permission, and to impose unlimited fines for refusing to provide data to the database.

The legislation is a frightening invasion of privacy because patients and providers have no say over whether the state may have, according to the bill, “access to individual information on physical functioning, medical treatment, supposed mental stability, marital problems, family structure, sexual habits, addictions, adherence to government health recommendations, and individual financial arrangements.”

Kefalas bragged about the massive privacy invasion in a press release, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” In other words the state must know the intimate details of your private medical records in order to “manage” your health care for you.

Sponsors of the legislation say your information will be secure and private…wink, wink. Colorado state government has a history of losing supposedly secure data. In this era of Big Data, there is no way to guarantee privacy or security. In the words of CU Associate Law Professor Paul Ohm, who specializes in privacy issues, “data can either be useful or perfectly anonymous but never both.”

Furthermore, the database will be funded by “unknown” sources with “unknown” agendas. Whoever is willing to pay to establish the database will have access to your private medical information.

In a paper released last fall, Ohm refers to “databases of ruin” where an individual’s most personal information is stored. Nate Anderson, senior editor of ARS Technica, summarized Ohm’s paper, “Scrubbing data just isn’t enough to keep our individual ‘databases of ruin’ out of the hands of the police, political enemies, nosy neighbors, friends, and spies.”

So where are all the privacy advocates from the Left?  Where are the champions of “choice”?  You’d think they would have marched en masse to the Capitol to protest such a massive intrusion into medical privacy.

But an online search turned up a grand total of two dissenting voices against such a significant government intrusion into individual rights and privacy: Amy Oliver-Cooke and Linda Gorman, both from the Independence Institute.

If I missed a single progressive voice against HB 1330, I’d love to know about it.

The problem with governing is that it sometimes makes a mockery of principles once championed. And obedient allies remain silent as politics replaces concern over those pesky principles of privacy and choice.

A version of this was originally published in The Huffington Post

In May, Governor Ritter signed into law six criminal justice reform bills generated out of the work of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ). On this week’s Devil’s Advocate (still loving this new name!), State Representative Claire Levy (D, Boulder) and Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, both members of the commission, join me to discuss the significance of the CCJJ bills and where the work of the commission might go from here. That’s this Friday at 8:30 PM on KBDI, Channel 12, re-broadcast the following Monday at 1:00 PM.