Colorado Politics published a guest column from Sen. Byron Pelton, and it is one worth reading. Pelton argues that legislative Democrats are trying to neutralize Initiative 175 before voters even get the chance to decide whether money collected from drivers should actually go to roads. According to Pelton, HB26-1430 would cut the gas tax and certain vehicle-related taxes and fees by the same amount Initiative 175 would dedicate to roads, leaving voters with no new road funding, no road repairs, and no TABOR refund.
Pelton’s argument is blunt: Colorado Democrats have spent years raiding transportation dollars while roads deteriorated, and now that voters may finally force accountability, the ruling class under the gold dome is panicking. Initiative 175 does not raise taxes. It simply tells government to spend road money on roads. Apparently that is enough to send the train-fantasy caucus running for the legislative panic button.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Pelton says Democrats have spent more than a decade raiding transportation funds while Colorado’s roads slid to a D+ rating. Anyone who has hit a pothole hard enough to see Jesus does not need convincing.
- Initiative 175 would require money paid by drivers for roads to actually go to roads. Radical stuff. Next thing you know, fire money will go to fire departments and school money will go to schools.
- HB26-1430 would allegedly reduce the funding sources Initiative 175 depends on by $700 million if voters approve the measure, meaning roads still get nothing. That is not governing. That is hiding the cookies after Mom said share.
- Pelton says Democrats are warning that Initiative 175 will “decimate” schools, higher education, and Medicaid, even though it affects about 2% of the state budget. Ah yes, the classic gold dome hostage note: fund potholes and the hospitals get it.
- Pelton also points out Colorado’s budget has grown more than 30% in six years and recently collected $1.7 billion above the TABOR limit. Translation: spare us the poverty act, especially from a government that keeps finding money for every activist dream project with a logo.
My Bottom Line
I read a lot of opinion pieces, and I like to report them here on The Sheet so you can take note. Senator Pelton is a former Logan County Commissioner, a very dear friend, and he is 110% right in every word he writes here.
The Polis administration and his band of ruling Democrats under the gold dome have done nothing but neglect Colorado’s roadway system while fueling their transit and train fantasy, which is destined to fail. It just will. Colorado is a big, spread-out, working state. People drive. Farmers drive. Ranchers drive. Contractors drive. Parents drive. Workers drive. Emergency responders drive. Roads are not optional infrastructure. They are the arteries of this state.
Initiative 175 has my full support. It recognizes that we need to build roads and earmarks tax money already collected to do just that: build roads. It must be polling very well, because the elitist ruling Democrats are in full panic. Thus, HB26-1430, a bad piece of legislation so cynical that its sponsor’s defense sounds like a confession.
This is an absolute usurpation of the very democracy Democrats claim to be so concerned about. They will run it anyway because God forbid you, the voter, define a priority for the Democrats. They want to decide where your money goes. Not you. Not the people who drive the roads. Not the families paying for alignments, tires, repairs, delays, and busted suspensions. Them. Your betters. Please clap.
They will lament that redirecting this kind of general fund money away from what they think is best will absolutely destroy the state budget. It will not. It will force them to make decisions. It will force them to reflect the will of the people instead of some activist and their pet project. That is what budgeting is, unless you are a ruling Democrat, in which case budgeting apparently means threatening schools every time someone asks for a road.
Pelton is right. Read his piece. Do not be fooled when the ruling elitist Democrats tell you the budgetary sky will fall if the people are foolish enough to tell them how to spend public money. That is what this fight is about. Roads, yes. But more than that, it is about power. They cannot stand the thought that voters might set a priority without asking permission first.
Source: Colorado Politics
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