Open it up, urge Nikkel & Kopp

Editor: Rare is the legislation that goes from stalled to unstoppable under Colorado's gold dome, and rare is the legislator who rides that kind of cyclone in her first month on the job. But such is the case with freshman state Rep. B.J. Nikkel and her transparency bill. Taking office on a vacancy appointment after the 2009 session had already started, Nikkel picked up an open-government proposal that fellow Republican Don Marostica had recently shelved, and quickly assembled a potent coalition for its passage -- after more than a year of inaction by the executive branch on this issue. Here's her account, co-authored with Senate sponsor Mike Kopp.

Bipartisan Calls for Transparency in State Government By Rep. B.J. Nikkel (R-Larimer Co.) and Sen. Mike Kopp (R-Jefferson Co.)

Making government transparent is a popular issue in the Colorado legislature this year, as we’ve had several attempts to provide taxpayers with online access to Colorado’s various governments spending habits.

Our bill, House Bill 1288, places Colorado on the cutting edge of transparency in state government, and if enacted, we will join over a dozen states nationwide that have already put state expenditures and revenues online.

Last week, HB 1288 – The Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, passed through House Finance Committee unanimously. Two weeks prior to that, a broad coalition of 38 Democrats and Republicans came together on the House floor in unison to co-sponsor our legislation upon its introduction.

The Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act is similar to other bills that have passed in several states, including Missouri, Kansas and Texas, as well as in the United States Senate. The U.S. Senate version of transparency was sponsored by then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and Sen. Tom Colburn, R-Oklahoma.

Just as transparency has brought together members of both parties in the U.S. Senate, a broad coalition of Democrats and Republicans have also come together at the State Capitol in support of making transparency part of state law.

Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colorado, has even announced plans to sign an executive order, mandating that all government spending be made available electronically. Although we applaud the governor for his willingness to put the state’s spending online, an executive order does not go far enough because it is not a law and can be swept away by the stroke of a pen.

Any new governor can simply rescind Gov. Ritter’s executive order. It’s very important for taxpayers to know that transparency in state government is not fleeting – it must be made permanent by through an act of state law. In addition, other states like Missouri that have implemented it through executive order have come back and made it permanent by putting it into law.

We are currently working with the governor’s office and hope that he will join this bipartisan group of Republican and Democrat lawmakers in supporting this important legislation in making transparency permanent for Colorado taxpayers.

Under current law, the burden-of-proof is on the taxpayer. If you want information on state spending you have to file a Colorado Open Records Act request and be willing to wait, spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on staff research and printing fees, and then wonder if you’ve truly received all the relevant information.

Our legislation shifts this burden-of-proof to the state government by making the process for quickly reviewing how the state is using your money, just a mouse-click away.

Putting the states expenditures and revenues online through statute, is a first step toward greater accountability. Under HB 1288, Colorado citizens will have the tool they’ve asked for to help us identify potential waste, and in some cases, fraud and abuse.

The state’s expenditures and revenues should be transparent, accessible, and free—and we need to keep the mantra of the taxpayers in mind which says, “if you can’t defend it, don’t spend it.”

Motorists shafted by Dems' tax trick

Beginning July 1, Colorado drivers will pay higher taxes--we're told to call them "fees"--on every vehicle every year when we renew our license plates. The increase of $29 to $51 per vehicle is projected to generate $250 million annually to repair unsafe roads and bridges, Gov. Bill Ritter said when he signed the "fee" hike into law.

All this occurs under the guise of economic stimulus as Colorado Democrats learn from their Washington counterparts to strike quickly while the economy is on the ropes and the public is too worried about their own finances to pay attention to statehouse shenanigans.

To be fair, transportation funding from Colorado's fuel tax has been stagnant in recent years because it's calculated on a per-gallon, rather than a per-cent, basis. Higher fuel prices and better fuel efficiency keep total fuel consumption relatively flat. For the last 10 years, the state's share of fuel tax receipts never fell below $379 million but never grew above $430 million.

When the economy is booming, roads and bridges receive a tremendous bonus from the general fund ‹ income and sales taxes ‹ which nearly matched the fuel tax, adding $1.3 billion to the transportation budget from 2005 to 2007.

However, just hours after Gov. Ritter signed the vehicle fee hike into law, every Democrat in the state senate voted to sever this general fund lifeline to transportation.

If it sounds like Democrats are talking out of both sides of their mouths, it's because they are - at least, so far. One day, they say our roads and bridges are unsafe and demand more money from Colorado drivers. The next day, they take a hatchet to transportation funding.

Any sane person can be excused for wondering what they're drinking or smoking at the state capitol.

Sadly this is nothing new. Dating back to former Gov. Roy Romer, Democrats' favorite tactic has been to grow social welfare spending and leave transportation with scraps. Romer's approach was to tell voters that if they wanted more money for transportation, they should vote for higher taxes.

In 1997, Romer and Republicans reached a compromise that guaranteed the aforementioned bonus source of highway funding and limited general fund spending increases to no more than six percent per year.

Republican Gov. Bill Owens staunchly defended that compromise and worked out a similar agreement with Democrats in 2002.

Now that Democrats hold a monopoly at the state capitol, they seem intent upon smashing those agreements in order to boost social welfare spending.

Senate Bill 228 would eviscerate the limit on general fund spending, end a vital source of transportation funding, and allow rapid expansion of entitlements. Even Gov. Romer didn't suggest repealing this limit without the required public vote, but today's Democrats are above consulting lowly taxpayers.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. John Morse, nearly stepped in it recently when, reacting to opposition from Denver chamber of commerce, he declared, "Let's let the people's elected representatives decide that - not the chamber."

Better yet, Sen. Morse, let's let the people decide for themselves, as the constitution ­ which you pledged to uphold ­ requires.

Ironically, proponents suggest that eliminating a spending limit to facilitate more spending on social welfare will help Colorado "get out of a recession."

That's an argument with rife with economic illiteracy. If all spending limits disappeared tomorrow, state government still couldn't spend an extra dime. In a recession, it's the economy that limits spending. Moreover, Colorado's government doesn't fund the economy; the economy funds government.

If Democrats want to expand social welfare spending, they should be honest about it. If they believe transportation needs more money, they should first protect every existing resource. And if they want to repeal state spending limits, they should follow the constitution by asking the voters.

Mark Hillman served as senate majority leader and state treasurer. To readmore or comment, go to www.MarkHillman.com

'Rest of story' suffers with Rocky gone

Just in the first week since the Rocky shut down, think about the state and local stories that were covered less robustly in the absence of a competing metro daily. Three for starters would be: ** Senate Dems seek to bust the 6% constitutional spending limit.

** Senate Dems endorse college subsidies for illegal aliens.

** CU students welcome plagiarist Ward Churchill and terrorist Bill Ayers.

Nothing against the solid reporting and commentary we've read in the Denver Post about these events, but they contain so many deeper levels and cross-currents that no single newspaper can possibly do them justice.

There's a reason people have two eyes and ears; a reason we say two heads are better than one; a reason Scripture says wisdom needs many counselors.

At 90, Paul Harvey, the founding father of opinion radio, was going to leave us one of these days. But how fitting that we lost him on the same weekend when Coloradans lost some of our access to "the rest of the story" with the Rocky's demise.

Spenders aim to bust the 6%

Emboldened that the state supreme court still hasn't ruled on Gov. Bill Ritter's plainly unconstitutional property tax hike, tax-and-spenders at the State Capitol are drawing up their game plan for another end-run around voters. If they can get away with hiking property taxes by claiming it's not a tax increase, then Democrats are increasingly confident they can again bypass voters and the state constitution by claiming that a spending limit is something else.

The Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) in the state constitution famously mandates that taxes cannot be increased without voter approval. However, voters also get the final word on weakening any limits on "revenue, spending and debt."

In 2005, Referendum C suspended much of TABOR for five years and modified other portions indefinitely. However, Ref C left intact a provision that limits annual increases in general fund spending to six percent and devotes anything over that amount to roads and bridges.

Now Democrats - and one Republican - want to eviscerate that limit, too, although their justification and methods are dubious.

Even Gov. Ritter's budget office - known for its dreamily-optimistic projections - doesn't expect general fund growth to bump against the limit in the next four years.

Why then are liberals chafing at a limit that won't actually impede them anytime soon? For the same reason their counterparts in Washington turned an "economic stimulus" bill into a big-government spending binge.

"You never want a crisis to go to waste," reminds Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to President Obama.

Taxpayers striving to keep their own financial boat afloat don't have time to worry about the minutiae of government formulas, so Democrats shamelessly use today's economic distress to dismantle anything that might slow state spending when the economy rebounds.

Spendaholics are all atwitter. "We've got to do something!" more often conceals an agenda of opportunism than of necessity.

"We don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem," complain activists at the liberal Colorado Center on Law and Policy. Translation: "Government can't spend enough because taxes aren't high enough."

No wonder they don't trust the voters.

Next, Jean Dubofsky, a former supreme court justice with a crafty legal mind and a penchant for legislating from the bench, proffered a clever legal strategy.

Dubofsky is no neutral observer. She's a board member of the Colorado ACLU and two liberal think tanks that despise TABOR. Her opinion suggests that the six percent limit really isn't a limit and can, therefore, be changed without voter approval.

Two Democrat legislators are dutifully parroting that message.

Denver Rep. Mark Ferrandino claims the six percent limit "doesn't actually limit the amount of money we're spending." Colorado Springs Sen. John Morse calls the six percent limit "an allocation strategy. TABOR is silent on allocation strategies."

Past legislatures and former governors from both parties have taken TABOR at its word when it plainly says: "Other limits on . . . revenue, spending and debt may be weakened only by future voter approval." Further, the constitution requires that TABOR's "preferred interpretation shall reasonably restrain most the growth of government.."

Although a spending limit of six percent is indeed arbitrary, it is hardly draconian. Yes, it could cause major difficulty in an age of hyper-inflation, but for eight of the past 10 years, six percent was more than the combined growth of inflation and population. Why then do liberals find it so oppressive?

Because expanding entitlement spending is the holy grail of the Left. More people who depend on government means more votes for the party that promises bigger government. Expanding social welfare is difficult when anything over six percent must go to roads and bridges.

It's ironic that liberals who liken government spending to "investment" now prefer to shift money away from lasting infrastructure and into social programs where more spending always begets demand for more spending.

If Gov. Ritter and Democrat legislators aren't willing to trust voters with these decisions, as the constitution requires, why then should voters trust them with their taxes?

RMN, RIP: What a loss

E. W. Scripps has announced that Friday will be the last day of publication for the Rocky Mountain News. This is a sad day for Denver and Colorado, and given the state's pivotal position in nationalpolitics, it's not too good for the country, either.

The Rocky always had longer articles, better coverage, and sharper commentary than its surviving rival, the Denver Post. But a tabloid format and a series of poor marketing and business decisions left it unable to compete in the shrinking market for dead-tree-based news.

The Rocky was also one of the main reasons that the more liberal Post didn't become the utterly irresponsible caricature of a newspaper that the Star-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times have turned into. With the Rocky now gone, there will be less pressure on the Post to be a responsible outlet, rather than a mouthpiece for the Democratic party and its affiliates.

In past times, the Post would have picked up the important features and much of the news staff of the Rocky. However, the Post, is facing financial problems of its own, laying off some editorial and management staff, and it's unclear how long it will continue to function, even without direct competition.

It's tempting to say that bloggers and other alternative media can step into the breach, and it may well be that a number of the reporters from the Rocky will try to develop their own sites for a living. And indeed, I'm sure we'll be able to pick up some of the slack.

But there's nothing like being on payroll to have the time to write and develop sources and stories. The Denver Press Club still has a bias against those who don't have major media organizations behind them, which limits credentialing and access to information and newsmakers. There's no question this is a serious loss for the area.