Colorado Budget Shortfall Exposes the State Program Problem

Colorado Politics, in a report by Marissa Ventrelli, walks through how lawmakers are trying to close a budget shortfall of more than $1.2 billion by scaling back or eliminating a series of relatively new state programs. The article runs through several of the targets, including teacher preparation aid, academic accelerator grants, wildfire home hardening money, a science teacher professional development program, the never-launched judicial discipline ombudsman office, and changes to the Cover All Coloradans program.

The piece makes clear that this is not a broad philosophical turn toward limited government so much as a scramble for savings. Some programs are being reduced, others are being sunset, and in at least one case the state is pulling $130 million from the Proposition 123 affordable housing fund into the General Fund to help paper over the next budget year. The political class is acting shocked that the math no longer works, which is always entertaining after years of spending like the bill would be mailed to somebody else.

Ventrelli also highlights one especially glaring item: Cover All Coloradans, the 2022 program providing health coverage for children and pregnant women living in the country illegally. The article notes the original estimate for the 2025-26 fiscal year was $27 million, but actual costs have climbed to nearly $90 million and could top $110 million in 2026-27. That is not a rounding error. That is a siren.

The Bullet Point Brief

• Colorado lawmakers are hacking away at newer programs to close a budget hole north of $1.2 billion. Amazing how “historic investments” become “optional pilot programs” the second the credit card declines.
• Teacher prep aid, academic accelerator grants, wildfire resilience money, and science teacher training are all getting cut back or ended. Government creates programs the way toddlers collect rocks, then acts heartbroken when somebody says the bucket is too heavy.
• The state is also moving $130 million from the Proposition 123 affordable housing fund into the General Fund. So even voter-approved pots of money are apparently just another pantry shelf when Denver gets hungry.
• Cover All Coloradans blew way past its original cost estimate, rising from a projected $27 million to nearly $90 million, with the next year possibly exceeding $110 million. Nothing says competent governance like missing by tens of millions and then pretending nobody could have seen it coming.
• The Office of the Judicial Discipline Ombudsman is being repealed after never really existing in the first place. Which may be the most efficient government program in Colorado history, since it managed to fail before it fully launched.

My Bottom Line

The budget shortfall is huge, and now we are hearing all the usual lamentation about cutting programs. Cue the pearl clutching. Look, I am not saying every program is bad. But when you hear the words government and program in the same sentence, you should generally hear one thing: more government.

That is the real disease here. Colorado does not just have a budget shortfall. It has a government growth addiction. Every legislative session seems to produce another bright, compassionate, expertly branded initiative that expands the bureaucracy, creates a new dependency, or sends tax dollars chasing some moral vanity project. Then one day the revenue slows, the costs explode, and suddenly the people who built the mess want applause for trimming a few branches off the tree they planted.

And let’s be direct about Cover All Coloradans. That program is despicable. We the people are literally paying for the health care of people who are here illegally. That is wrong. Period. You do not have to hate anybody to say that. You just have to understand that a government’s first duty is to its own citizens, not to every person who manages to arrive and present the taxpayers with a bill.

The rest of the list is the same basic story in different packaging. More programs. More spending. More government. Colorado does not need a more creative way to shuffle money between funds and pretend restraint is happening. It needs a concerted effort to make government smaller, leaner, and less obsessed with inventing new obligations. That is the lesson here. Not that we need better spin for the cuts. That we needed fewer programs in the first place.

Source: Colorado Politics