Colorado Politics ran a column by Jon Caldara that says the quiet part out loud: Colorado is shrinking, and the political class should be sweating. In a state that used to grow like weeds after a spring rain, people are now leaving, rent in metro Denver is falling, and the warning lights are blinking.
Jon lays it out bluntly: affordability is getting crushed, employers are getting treated like villains, and the Gold Dome keeps pitching more mandates like that is going to fix the mess they already made. Sure, if you ignore reality, this is all totally fine.
The Bullet Point Brief
- The column argues Colorado’s net in-migration has stopped and may be reversing.
- Metro Denver rents are reported to be down nearly 5% over the last year, the first drop in 16 years.
- Caldara points to unaffordability, litter, crime, and an anti-employer climate as drivers of the shift.
- He highlights state policy fights over renewable energy timelines, the Labor Peace Act, and weakening TABOR.
- He argues housing costs are pushed up by layered government restrictions and mandates, and energy policy is choosing ideology over reliability.
My Bottom Line
As always, Jon is spot-on and damned entertaining. And yes, in Colorado, we have to laugh to keep from crying, because the ruling class keeps handing us progress that looks a lot like decline with better marketing.
Here’s the part they skip: when people stop moving here, and rents start falling, that is not a victory lap. It is a distress signal. The market is giving feedback, and the Gold Dome is responding like a guy who hears his truck rattle and turns the radio up.
This is what Colorado looks like after 7 years of total democrat domination. More mandates, more rules, more ideological box-checking, and then a confused face when families and employers decide they have options and take them. If it worked, they wouldn’t need a mandate.
You don’t fix a cost-of-living crisis by attacking energy reliability, kneecapping employers, and layering housing with endless restrictions, fees, and processes.
I wonder if the great suburban normie will wake up and realize that voting for Dems is ruining us. We’ll see. In the meantime, the fix is not complicated: stop treating working people like an ATM, stop treating job creators like parolees, and stop chasing flashy statewide schemes that ignore local realities. Reality doesn’t take petitions.
Source: Colorado Politics
