You might think that a self-proclaimed “economic development expert” would have a solid grasp of the levels of taxation in Colorado. You might be wrong.

In a recent Denver Post guest opinion column making a case for a two-tiered state income-tax rate, former state representative and executive director of Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade Don Marostica makes the claim that Colorado ranks 45th in combined state and local taxation. Mr. Marostica did not cite any source for this claim. Here is the what he wrote:

For state taxes paid per $1,000 of income, Colorado ranks 48th. When state and local taxes are combined, Colorado is still near the bottom at 45th, below Texas and all our other neighboring states.

But according to the the meticulously sourced and cited 2012 Independence Institute study, “How Colorado’s Tax Burdens Rank Nationally,” Colorado is 26th in the nation for combined state and local tax burdens…hardly “near the bottom” in terms of paying taxes. From the study:

Colorado ranks 26th nationally, compared to all other states for the combined state and local tax burden, on a per capita basis.

You can read the study here.

With all the focus on guns, it’s easy to forget about all the other areas the Colorado legislature effects our daily lives – like transportation. Transportation policy has been one of my pet issues for quite sometime. As you may recall, I used to be chairman of the RTD board (see, I’ve got some street cred).

Some important things to note: First, the big light-rail boondoggle moves forward with the recent opening of RTD’s West line. You may have read that it came under budget, but of course that’s not true. It actually costs more than double what they estimated back in 1997. Not to mention it will service less people than originally proposed, making it the perfect combination of a government program: Over budget with less benefits. You can read more about the boondoggle in this Complete Colorado Page 2 editorial, “Light-rail boondoggle moves money instead of people,” from Brian Schwartz and Randal O’Toole.

Speaking of Brian Schwartz… he’s been on fire in relation to transportation these days. Not only did he help write that fantastic editorial for Complete Colorado, he was also quoted in this morning’s Denver Post. In an article describing how the state can now use road money for virtually anything transit related (totally unconstitutional by the way), Brian is quoted as the lone voice in opposition (go figure).

Keep it up Brian, we – and our cars – need you fighting the good fight.

Mark your calendar right now for the biggest party of the year. And it’s coming up fast. Our 28th Annual Founders’ Night Dinner will be held March 7th at Infinity Park in Glendale.

Every year we honor one person who has gone above and beyond to fight for Liberty and the future of Colorado with our David S. D’Evelyn Award. Past recipients include Mike Rosen, Jake Jabs, Bruce Benson, William Coors, Hank Brown and many more.

This year we are thrilled to recognize with this award a true Independence Institute original – one of our former Senior Fellows and former Board Trustee. This person was a lawyer for the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a free market public interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty and property rights. This person also served as Attorney General for the State of Colorado and later as the Secretary of the Interior of the United States of America.

Haven’t guessed who it is yet? Here’s a hint – liberal actor/activist Robert Redford was so enamored with this person that in a public letter to her, he said, “Sadly, since assuming the Interior Secretary post, you have compiled an abysmal record of capitulating to big businesses at the expense of the nation’s public health, public lands and wildlife.” How can you not love her?

Yes that’s right: Liberty’s Warrior, the Honorable Gale Norton will receive our D’Evelyn award.

And now for the main act…

America is on the edge – the edge of fiscal ruin by governmental spending, the edge of moral ruin by mortgaging our children’s future, the edge of Constitution ruin by an unchecked federal government.

Perhaps like you, we at Independence find ourselves wondering – is it too late?

We wanted to bring that question to someone qualified enough to actually answer that question. After a great deal of in-house argument as to who was best to understand and explain the role of government in a free society, we all found ourselves drawn to the same name.

I am more than excited to announce our keynote speaker on March 7th is the great economist and communicator, Walter Williams.

Following in the trail blazed by Fredrick Hayek and Milton Friedman, Walter Williams is the nation’s finest, clear-thinking economist. And his thinking has brought him to what he told me was his solution for the nation’s crisis – Obey the Constitution.

Dr. Williams is Chairman of the Economics Department for George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the author of over 150 publications which have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, Georgia Law Review, Journal of Labor Economics, Social Science Quarterly, and Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy and popular publications such as Newsweek, Ideas on Liberty, National Review, Reader’s Digest, Cato Journal, and Policy Review. He has authored ten books including Do the Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks, More Liberty Means Less Government, Liberty vs. the Tyranny of Socialism, Up From The Projects: An Autobiography, and Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed On Discrimination?

He has made scores of radio and television appearances which include Nightline, Firing Line, Face the Nation, Milton Friedman’s Free To Choose, Crossfire, MacNeil/Lehrer, Wall Street Week and was a regular commentator for Nightly Business Report. He is also an occasional substitute host for the Rush Limbaugh Show. In addition Dr. Williams writes a nationally syndicated weekly column that is carried by approximately 140 newspapers and several web sites.

Seats for this event will be going quickly, very quickly. If you wish to join us, you have the opportunity to purchase tickets online here, or you can email Mary MacFarlane at Mary@i2i.org.

Don’t be the person who someday says, “Oh, I wish I had been there!”

Its the usual half-hour of public-affairs television excellence on Devil’s Advocate this Friday night, but in two segments. First, Il Mondo Vecchio owner Mark DeNittis sits down with me to describe how the USDA recently put his Denver-based artisan cured meats company out of business. That’s right, two Italian guys talking about sausages. Then Bob Berry of USAmends.com swings by to discuss the so called “fiscal cliff” and how the debate around sequestration has been distorted by both sides of the aisle. That’s Friday night at 8:30 PM on Colorado Public Television 12.

The education funding mafia is making a sport of touting false education spending numbers in order to scare voters into voting for higher taxes. They continue to spread the lie that Colorado ranks near the bottom in per pupil funding, and often cite the statistic “$6,500 per pupil.” Meanwhile, if they cared to look at the official numbers from the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), they’d find that the $6,500 figure does not include federal funds and other monies, which account for about a third of total per pupil spending. In other words, the actual per pupil spending is much closer to $10,000 – not $6,500. These dishonest propagandists either know the truth about Colorado’s education spending and are lying to get their beloved tax hike, or they haven’t bothered to look at what the spending situation is – according to official statistics from the CDE.

Below you can find Education Policy analyst Ben DeGrow explaining the truth about Colorado’s education spending on 9News. Please share with the education spending mafia near you. We need to get the truth out.

Still trying to figure out that ballot? Then tune into Devil’s Advocate tonight for an explanation of some of those badly worded ballot measures. First, former Denver City Councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt joins me to explain Denver Measure 2A, the forever property tax increase. Then Miller Hudson swings by to discuss Colorado Amendment S, the personnel reform amendment. It just doesn’t get much more spine tingling than that. That’s tonight at 8:30PM on Colorado Public Television 12.

Why is this Billboard now across the street from the Denver Post building?

I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, so let me explain. I really miss the days of Denver being a two newspaper town. The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News for a century had a competition which gave Coloradans superior news coverage of state and local issues. Those days are gone. The Rocky went under a few years ago and sadly, the Post is a frail shadow of what it once was.

Much of this demise is not the fault of the Post. Younger people don’t buy papers, they get their news for free online. Online classified ads like Craigslist took away the paper’s largest steady income source. The Post is also straddled with crippling debt.

But the Denver Post is still the paper of record for Colorado. And it needs to act like it.

I want to see the Post survive and thrive. The state needs a trusted news source. But just like when a friend needs an intervention, the Post needs to hear the truth no matter how painful.

To the good and extremely overworked people at the Post, we have to tell you that you are failing to cover news. My guess is you know this. We understand your staff has been slashed to a fraction of what it was and how this economy has hurt your industry. But we rely on you for actual reporting, and you are failing to do that job. Rerunning Associated Press stories and writing about gardening tips and Bronco games are fine. However, you have a responsibility to report the news.

When Denver Public Schools changed their evaluation for teachers, judging them on how well they got our children to get involved in “social justice,” there was no news coverage from the Post. 9News did the story. When DPS reversed this politically-driven policy, there was again no coverage. You could read about it in the Washington Times, however.

When it was found that the co-chair of President Obama’s reelection committee, Denver’s former mayor Federico Pena, was a venture capitalist just like Mitt Romney, laying off a thousand workers and closing three domestic factories, there was no coverage. Rush Limbaugh did a better job informing Coloradans about this story than the Post did.

But hiding from the Abound Solar story is beyond excusable.

In our own backyard is Solyndra on steroids, and not a peep from the Denver Post. A politically-connected solar company gets a $400 million guarantee of government loans. And we learn of the Pat Stryker connection from Complete Colorado. http://completecolorado.com/stories/markey-stryker-pay-to-play.html

When the firm went belly-up the company execs told a Congressional committee it was because of cheap Chinese competition. But when whistle blowers show that the product was so faulty it would catch fire, it was the Daily Caller that told the story http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/02/sources-documents-suggest-government-subsidized-abound-solar-was-selling-faulty-product/. As one worker said – it was a fine product, so long as you didn’t put it in the sun.

When documents were found suggesting Abound falsified its books to secure funding, there was no story in the Post. You had to go to Fox News http://nation.foxnews.com/abound-solar-inc/2012/10/08/congress-local-authorities-investigate-doe-loan-recipient-abound-solar

When the District Attorney of Weld County opened a full investigation into Abound, you could find the story on Channel 7 http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/abound-solar-under-investigation-by-weld-county-district-attorney-received-68-million-stimulus but not in the Post.

When the US House Energy and Commerce Committee announced a further investigation into Abound, http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/committee-leaders-probe-does-knowledge-loan-recipients-faulty-solar-panels – now the story made it to Reuters, but not the Post.

We put a billboard across the street from the Denver Post to remind them that they are STILL the paper of record in Colorado. And it’s time they stopped turning a blind eye to news that matters. We want the Post to succeed.

If approved by voters in November, Denver Measure 2A would, among other things, remove property tax revenue limitations imposed by Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), resulting in a forever and unlimited tax increase for Denver property owners.

It’s more than obvious who wants this forever tax increase passed. Denver Mayor Hancock and his administration have been out making the case for homeowners to balance the city’s budget for them by raising their own taxes. The Denver Post was editorializing in favor of the idea before it was even referred to the ballot. The Denver Business Journal has reported on support for 2A from the Downtown Denver Partnership and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metro Denver (though oddly they couldn’t seem to find any opposition to report on, but more on that later). According to their September campaign finance report, the issue committee behind the Yes on 2A campaign, Moving Denver Forward, has received over $400,000 in donations to help put the squeeze on Denver property owners. The list of donors reads like a political class who’s who of bigger government advocates. $25,000 from the Denver firefighters union, another $25,000 each from the Denver Library Friends Foundation and Democratic Party funder Tim Gill, $10,000 each from VISIT Denver (the convention lobby) and left wing politcal funder Pat Stryker. Even the Teamsters Union managed to scrape up $5,000 for the cause.

Contributions from real estate developers and construction firms run six figures.

In contrast, the issue committee opposing Measure 2A, No Blank Check 2012, has raised a little over $2,500.

So a voter looking for information, or a reporter looking for a favorable comment should have little trouble finding the “pro” side of Measure 2A. But who is out there opposing this thing?

The Independence Institute to begin with. My work for the Institute on why 2A is a bad idea can be found here and here in the Denver Huffington Post, and my recent “pro/con” series with Mayor Hancock in the Wash Park Profile neighborhood newspaper is here:

Measure 2A would also fall hard on senior citizen homeowners living on fixed incomes. Their property taxes will go up, while their income remains flat. The Hancock administration tacitly acknowledges this in their proposal to spend the new tax money, which includes (the phrase): “Increase the city’s property-tax credit from $186/year to $372 for 4,000 low-income senior citizens and persons with disabilities.”

Since this is new general fund money (discretionary spending), there is absolutely no guarantee that this is what it will actually go towards. Even so, what they leave out is that other low-income and fixed-income senior citizens will pay for the tax credits for those 4,000 people.

Writing on behalf of the Independence Institute, Joshua Sharf makes the case against Measure 2A in the Denver Post here. Writes Joshua:

The mayor’s proposal assumes that rising home values necessarily mean rising incomes. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports Denver’s weekly income fell nearly 5 percent in 2011. The mayor’s mill levy override scheme would mean an immediate property tax increase of 10 percent for households who are still finding it difficult to make ends meet.

Joshua has also written on Measure 2A at the WhoSaidYouSaid blog.

Measure 2A is also opposed by former Denver City Councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt. Here’s what Gelt, a liberal Democrat, had to say in her Denver Post column:

Personnel costs comprise 70 percent of Denver’s operating budget and they escalate yearly. The current proposal restores employee furloughs but avoids long-term systemic changes to an arcane personnel system.

Gelt also had this to say recently on her regular appearance on Colorado Public Television 12:

Denver voters have a choice. Approve a blank check that never expires for higher taxes, or send Mayor Hancock back to the drawing board to craft a balanced initiative with a mix of reduced expenses and tax increases. 2A is bad for jobs, small business and homeowners. Vote NO.

Ben Gelt runs the No Blank Check 2012 campaign, which opposes Measure 2A and whose website states:

There is no limit to how much the City will collect through this tax increase. When property values go up, so will the tax revenue generated. The City ignored its task force by asking for higher taxes with no ceiling, prior to reducing expenses.

The Glendale/Cherry Creek Chronicle, a Denver neighborhood newspaper, recently editorialized against Measure 2A:

The voters are told Denver has a structural deficit which means even in bountiful times the city’s revenues can never meet its expenses. The obvious conclusion to the existence of a structural deficit is that Denver city government is unable to stop spending money it does not have. Why in the world would anyone want to give such a government $68 million per year more to squander?

In a Denver Business Journal guest opinion piece (hidden behind a subscriber pay wall) Tyler Smith and Scott Peterson from the Denver Metropolitan Commercial Association of Realtors (DMCAR) urge readers to “Defeat ballot measures that raise taxes” including Measure 2A.

And in the Denver Post’s Sunday Perspective section, Mark Ver Hoeve makes a compelling case against 2A:

For 2013, Mayor Michael Hancock has proposed a 3.9 percent increase in the General Fund, the city’s operating budget, or $964 million, up from $926 million in 2012. Tax revenue for 2013 is projected to be $945 million, a 3.5 percent increase. That’s right: Tax revenues are up and higher than the previous year’s budget, but the city wants to spend more.

And finally, the No on Denver 2A facebook page can be found here.

This morning on 850 KOA’s Mike Rosen Show, two of our senior fellows joined Mike in studio to discuss the lawsuit against our Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR). Officially called Kerr v. Hickenlooper in federal court, the suit attempts to kill TABOR in Colorado because it allegedly violates our United States’ Constitution’s guarantee clause. The guarantee clause, ehem, guarantees us a “republican” form of government. No one expected the lawsuit to go very far and indeed, it came as quite a surprise when one of our federal judges allowed the suit to proceed.

Now we defenders of the TABOR amendment are left scratching our heads wondering how this could be, and curiously, whether there is any merit to the case. That’s where senior fellows Penn Pfiffner of our Fiscal Policy Center and Rob Natelson of Constitution Studies come in. In their 30 minute segment on the Mike Rosen program, they explain the background of the case, why it matters, and most importantly, why it’s total bunk (and deserves to be thrown out).

Gun laws, tax increases and the Californication of Republicans are all topics of recently published works by Independence Institute writers.

In USA Today, the Denver Post and National Review Online, Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel makes the case for both resisting calls for expanded gun control in the wake of the Aurora theater shooting and for not inadvertently making a celebrity of the killer.

Also in the Denver Post, guest writer joshua Sharf explains that Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s proposed permanent property tax increase lacks vision:

The mayor’s proposal assumes that rising home values necessarily mean rising incomes. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports Denver’s weekly income fell nearly 5 percent in 2011. The mayor’s mill levy override scheme would mean an immediate property tax increase of 10 percent for households who are still finding it difficult to make ends meet.

Whole thing here.

In the Colorado Springs Gazette, senior fellow Barry Fagin advises Colorado Republican against Californicating themselves:

Do Republicans want to be like Democrats, or do they want to beat them? If Colorado is to avoid California’s fate, then Colorado should avoid California’s Republicans. They should hit economic issues much harder, and stop obsessing over problems that the federal government can’t solve, are fundamentally religious in nature, or are better addressed through cultural change and not the ballot box.

Read it all here.