The Denver Gazette Editorial Board is backing up Rep. Gabe Evans’ warning to Gov. Jared Polis: Colorado’s regulation addiction is hammering small businesses. Evans’ letter points at what a lot of local employers have been saying for years, usually while trying to fill out another form, absorb another fee, or figure out which new mandate Denver cooked up during lunch.
The Gazette says Evans accused the Polis administration and Democratic legislature of piling on rules that have created “ever-growing hardships” for small businesses. He cited Colorado’s ranking as the sixth most heavily regulated state, state taxes on overtime, fees on diesel fuel, deliveries and transportation services, and the 10-cent plastic bag fee as examples of the cumulative burden.
That is the point. This is not one regulation. It is death by a thousand well-intentioned legislative screwdrivers. Colorado’s ruling class keeps treating small businesses like bottomless ATMs with a cash register, a compliance department, and infinite patience.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Gabe Evans called out the regulatory pileup. The Gazette reports Evans sent Polis a letter arguing that small-business owners and chambers of commerce are blaming state regulation for mounting hardship. Somewhere, a small employer just whispered, “Welcome to Tuesday.”
- Colorado’s business climate is not exactly glowing. The editorial cites a Colorado Chamber of Commerce review finding more than 205,000 state-level restrictions and ranking Colorado sixth-highest in business restrictions nationwide.
- The cost is not imaginary. The Gazette points to a 2023 Common Sense Institute study estimating that mandates imposed through legislation and ballot proposals cost Colorado’s economy about $2 billion a year. That is a lot of money to spend on making normal people miserable in triplicate.
- The Polis administration says it is trying to reduce administrative burdens. The Gazette notes Polis signed a bipartisan measure aimed at reviewing agency rules. Lovely. The Capitol spilled paint on the carpet for years and now wants applause for noticing the stain.
- The hypocrisy is rich enough to frost a cake. Colorado politicians love photo ops in front of cute storefronts, then spend the session making sure only giant corporations, government contractors, and nonprofit barnacles can afford the lawyers to survive.
My Bottom Line
Small businesses are not props. They are not unpaid compliance interns for the Capitol’s latest moral performance art. They are family employers, rural shops, Main Street restaurants, contractors, farms, service companies, local retailers, and Front Range entrepreneurs already fighting high rent, labor costs, insurance, energy bills, supply costs, and customers who are stretched thin too.
The Polis-era Democratic machine has turned “supporting local business” into one of the great political scams. They create costs, call them protections, shove them onto employers, and then campaign in front of the survivors like they personally invented the cash register.
A business owner’s day is not supposed to be one long HR seminar designed by Denver and Boulder policy priests who have never had to make payroll on Friday. Every new fee, mandate, reporting rule, wage wrinkle, environmental requirement, labor regulation, and compliance memo adds weight. One brick at a time still builds a wall.
Colorado says it wants thriving small businesses. Fine. Then stop treating them like a permanent funding source for bureaucratic self-expression. Main Street does not need another speech about values. It needs breathing room, sane rules, lower costs, and a state government that remembers employers are not the enemy. They are the people keeping the lights on.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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