(You can listen to this column, read by the author, here.) The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has called for a vote on funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. He has done so at sizable professional risk. His isolationist Republicans might remove him from his leadership position for it. By the time you read this column, you’ll likely know how those votes went. As I write this, I have no idea. But I do know there’s one vote that could be wildly important, if only there were a representative to cast it. With Ken Buck’s resignation well before his term ends, h ..read more

I’ve been listening to the excellent podcast series, “The History of Philosophy without Any Gaps.” I’m still on the ancient Greeks. On one level, those thinkers had some absolutely bonkers ideas. Thales thought that everything is or comes from water. Parmenides thought that everything is one solid and undifferentiated mass, that change is impossible, and that the world of experience is illusory. But these thinkers are worth paying attention to. Following Thales, we think that there is some underlying unity of matter. Parmenides provoked some hard thinking about logical argument and the nature ..read more

DENVER — Independence Institute President Jon Caldara has become well known for his willingness to take issues directly to the voters, and one topic has catapulted to the top of his “must do” list. Caldara is hoping to take what is currently known as Initiative 183 to the 2024 ballot, asking voters to reduce the annual Colorado legislative session from its current 120 days down to just 90 days. The initiative is now in the petition approval phase, after which Caldara will need to collect 124,238 valid signatures of registered voters (5 percent of the total votes cast for secretary of stat ..read more

Hundreds of thousands of Xcel Energy customers in Colorado recenlty lost power as high winds damaged power lines, and Xcel preemptively shut off the power to 55,000 customers to mitigate the risk of wildfires. Among the customers who lost power were homeowners and small businesses who received little to no warning The Denver Post detailed how families experienced entire refrigerators and freezers full of food spoiling, forcing them to refill them at a time when food costs are 25 percent higher than they were four years ago. Business owners without power lost tens of thousands of dollars due to ..read more

(You can listen to this column, read by the author, here) Every conversation about the Colorado state legislature should begin with this preface: “And these are the people who say Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. …” The legislature is moving forward with a bill to rip away direct elections of the Regional Transportation District Board (RTD), which encompasses the largest population of any local government in the state. Yes, they are willing to allow a couple of “window dressing” elected seats to “represent” the 3 million suckers in the Denver metro area, while minion political appointees ..read more

The Colorado Education Association elected a new president, Kevin Vick. Remarkably, Vick promised that, if a majority of Colorado students are not meeting or exceeding expectations on the the language, math, and science sections of the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) within five years, the union will endorse universal school choice. Ha! Just joking! The teachers’ union never in a million years would support parents overseeing their own children’s education, no matter how bad the public schools. Vick instead promised that the union will fight for more money for CEA members: “Togeth ..read more

In a major victory for taxpayers, a unanimous panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals agreed with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s Taxpayer Defense Center (NTUF) that an overnight doubling of the property taxes in a few Northern Colorado counties violated the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). We represented James Aranci and his neighbors, who were shocked to learn in 2020 that their property taxes to the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District doubled from 2019 to 2020 (and the years thereafter). TABOR mandates a ratification vote of any proposed tax increase or new de ..read more

The conventional definition of patriotism is love for and loyalty to one’s country. A 2023 survey published in the Wall Street Journal found that only 38% of respondents thought patriotism was very important to them, down sharply from 70% when that question was first asked in 1998.While 59% of seniors 65 and older feel that way today, only 23% of adults under 30 do. I vividly remember America’s 200th birthday in 1976.  Patriotic activities and celebrations abounded across the country leading up to a grand finale on the glorious Bicentennial Day.  What has doused that American spirit ..read more

State Representative Bob Marshall and I don’t agree on much, but I agree with him that his colleagues in the Colorado legislature don’t like the fact that the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) requires that they give us our money back. As we did last year (and as we likely will in coming years), we will have a TABOR surplus this year. This is good news, but careful readers will notice that I did not use the word “refund” after TABOR. That was no accident. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, politicians abhor giving you back your money. Why do that when they know how to spend it better than yo ..read more

DENVER — Doing what he is well known for, Independence Institute president Jon Caldara has started the process to let Colorado voters decide whether legislators should be treated differently than other elected officials when they meet in groups of more than two. Last Friday, Caldara and his co-proponent, Vanessa Rutledge appeared before the Legislative Council staff to answer questions about Initiative 287, which would repeal Senate Bill 157. Rutledge is the communications and marketing manager for the Independence Institute, a Denver-based free market think tank, which is also the publisher o ..read more