Gov. Jared Polis rolled out a state report and a press conference to pin Colorado’s economic blues on Trump’s tariffs, warning of slumping exports, higher input costs, and even a 2026 recession. The kicker: the glossy, 94-page study offers plenty of doom and almost no solutions, while critics like Kristi Burton-Brown say the real problem is the governor’s own tax and regulate binge.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Tariffs as the villain. Polis says effective tariff rates jumped and are squeezing energy, ag, construction, and aerospace, with recession risk on the horizon.
- Report without remedies. The state’s analysis catalogs harms, then points to lawsuits instead of a plan to help businesses or workers now.
- Ag takes it on the chin. The report flags export losses and warns of broader slowdowns hitting state revenue and schools.
- Costs keep climbing. Building materials and other inputs get pricier, undercutting the administration’s own housing goals.
- KBB unloads. Kristi Burton-Brown blasts Polis for blaming Trump while Colorado becomes brutally expensive, urging tax cuts and fewer mandates instead of pressers.
My Bottom Line
KBB 100 percent nailed it. Same here. If your plan is a slideshow, a lawsuit, and a scapegoat, you do not have a plan. Colorado families are not living in a white paper. They are living in a state where groceries, gas, housing, and insurance gouge the paycheck while the governor waves a report and says, “It’s the tariffs.” That is politics as alibi, not leadership.
Polis’s own policies helped set this bonfire. Fees stacked on fees. Mandates that spike project costs. A default posture that treats employers like enemy combatants. KBB’s critique is the adult in the room: stop raising the burden on businesses, actually cut taxes, quit cranking out regulations no one can afford, and fight the push for an income tax hike that kneecaps small firms. In plain English, govern like you want paychecks to grow.
Here is the common-sense package that wins the Great Suburban Normie and actually helps the working class Polis keeps name-dropping:
- Immediate relief. Suspend or reduce recent fee hikes and permit surcharges that flow straight into prices.
- Cut the rates. Broad, visible tax cuts on income and business equipment. Pair with real restraint in spending growth.
- Regulatory spring cleaning. Freeze new mandates. Sunset old ones unless agencies prove net consumer benefit.
- Blue Collar Commission. KBB’s idea is solid. Put owners, foremen, and farmers at the table and make their recommendations binding unless vetoed in public.
- Build, not babble. Streamline approvals for housing and industry, prioritize road and freight corridors, and stop pretending a lawsuit is economic policy.
Colorado does not need another press conference about Washington. It needs a governor who admits state policy is a cost driver and then rips those costs out by the roots. Until then, blaming tariffs is like blaming the weather for a roof you never fixed. KBB said the quiet part out loud. Consider this as me turning up the volume.
