In an opinion column, Colorado State Treasurer Dave Young argues the state is on the brink of a fiscal crisis and the answer is not austerity but higher taxes on “billionaires and millionaires,” plus a modernized severance tax on oil and gas. Young touts a graduated income tax proposal he says would raise 2.4 billion dollars annually and urges lawmakers to pursue “meaningful tax reform.” He also warns of looming costs shifted to states and revenue impacts from federal tax-code changes.
Young further contends Medicaid cuts are penny-wise, pound-foolish; says reducing PERA support creates larger long-term risks; and frames Colorado’s constraints as a “scarcity trap” that will soon keep government from providing “basic services for a livable Colorado” unless revenue increases. He positions these moves as investments in residents’ “health and dignity.”
The Bullet Point Brief
- The pitch: tax the rich. A new graduated income tax targeting the top 2 percent would, he says, generate 2.4 billion dollars a year. Translation: spend first, bill later.
- Oil and gas in the crosshairs. He calls Colorado’s severance tax “woefully” behind other western states and wants it “modernized.” Families call it higher energy costs.
- Blames D.C. and austerity. Points to federal policy and warns Colorado government soon cannot deliver “basic services” without big revenue hikes.
- Medicaid and PERA as leverage. Argues trimming rates or delaying PERA money backfires and insists on larger near-term outlays. The math: always more.
- Scarcity trap rhetoric. The solution he offers is permanent, wider tax pipes and a Legislature that “asserts authority” to raise them. Voters, meet the tab.
My Bottom Line
Typical Democrat playbook: declare a crisis, target the job creators and the energy economy, and call it compassion. Dave Young frets about a government “scarcity trap.” I’m worried about the scarcity at kitchen tables from Grand Junction to Greeley. When eggs, rent, and power are high, the answer is not to squeeze families and small businesses harder.
Colorado doesn’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Seven years into this Polis/Young regime, costs are up, promises multiply, and the solution is always the same: tax more and say it’s for the children. Thank God for TABOR. It is the only reason the state still has to ask before it raids your wallet.
Taxing “the rich” doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You push capital and employers across borders, you hobble paychecks, and you hammer the oil-and-gas engine that funds schools and local services. That is not compassion. It is economic self-sabotage dressed as virtue.
Here’s the grown-up fix: audit programs, sunset what fails, prioritize core services, and stop using state government as a venture-capital fund for political projects. Respect local control. Respect taxpayers. Grow the economy, not the bureaucracy. Pray Dave Young is not promoted to anything else. Under his stewardship, Colorado’s affordability problem got worse. Enough.
Source: The Denver Post
