BackboneAmerica

It’s hard to turn on the TV these days. The news and images from Washington are like a train wreck. The height of hypocrisy: (more…)

When oil is not in the headlines, wind and solar energy gets the ink. Renewable energy is seen by some as the fix (more…)

The problems with our health care system stem not from too many market forces, but from too little. (more…)

“The Presidency is the ultimate prize.” “Congress matters most for the issues I care about.” “The world won’t end if the other side takes over our statehouse for a while.” Listen to the political talk for any length of time, and you will hear those three thoughts expressed. You have probably expressed them yourself. Are they generally true? Yes. But they’re not the whole story. Important as the stakes are in Washington DC for this election year, it also matters a great deal who holds the governor’s chair and who leads the legislative majorities, down at your state capitol. (more…)

Sound market economics is missing from a 208 Commission spokesman’s recent Denver Post piece defending their recommendation (more…)

It is less than profound to say that rising health care costs are restricting access for the working poor and squeezing all of us. (more…)

Observers of Colorado’s Blue Ribbon 208 Commission on Health Care have generously withheld our comments, pending completion (more…)

The uproar over Governor Ritter’s executive order setting all state employees on a path to unionization has been extraordinary. Business outrage, legislative indignation, (more…)

Following up our 8/12 radio show, a reminder that you can learn more on Moses Parmar’s ministry to India’s untouchables at the Dalit Freedom Network site, and you can track Ward Connerly’s work for color-blind law through his American Civil Rights Institute. My prediction of Mitt Romney’s nomination next year (more…)

The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; (more…)

After flying this past weekend, and being ‘treated’ to airline security courtesy of TSA, it was a reminder of how government never does a better job at anything (except for the military) than the private sector. (more…)

(John Andrews in Omaha World-Herald, Oct. 25) As a Colorado leader with many Nebraska friends (we don’t discuss football), I’d like to see Nebraska have the kind of thriving economy my state has. That’s why I hope Nebraskans in this election will restrain taxes and spending with fiscal guardrails, as Coloradans did years ago.

The possibility that Nebraska will pass Initiative 423, the Stop Over Spending amendment, is welcome news to me, unlike the Big 12 Conference football standings. The SOS plan to slow the runaway growth of government can help restore healthy growth to Nebraska’s lagging economy. It worked for us in the high country, so why not for Nebraskans on the Plains as well?

This taxpayer advocate objects to the distortion of our Colorado success story that was foisted on World-Herald readers last month by big-government cheerleader Deb Crago (“Critical state services suffered under Colorado state budget lid,” Sept. 28 Midlands Voices). Her phony scare propaganda deserves a rebuttal from the perspective of working families. (more…)

Let’s take a trip back in our time machine to last fall’s election season (I know, we haven’t even managed to get through this one but bear with me) and recall the arguments used to support Referendum C – the state’s largest tax hike ever. One of the prevailing arguments, that prompted former Senator Hank Brown to beg for our votes in a television commercial, was that if we didn’t pass the tax increase it would be devastating to higher education.

And it worked! On November 1, 2005, 52% of the voters passed Ref C hoping that the money would be spent wisely and higher education would be “safe.” If you’re curious as to how part of your tax increase is being spent, don’t miss this article in the Denver Post: “Holistic science studies are nothing to sniff at.”

One of the pictures accompanying the article shows a student blissfully sniffing a bottle of, well, something. In the article you’ll learn that one of Metropolitan State College of Denver’s brand new majors is “integrative therapeutic practices” which teaches students to sniff things like “tangerine oil” and practice Reiki, “which involves channeling energy into someone’s body.” Students will also receive instruction on how to make herbal teas and salves.

That’s your tax dollars at work, folks.