By Brian Ochsner baochsner@aol.com The biggest deficit that our state and country face today isn’t the financial variety. Our federal budget and foreign trade deficits are only symptoms of the cause. A verse in Proverbs sums it up best: “Without vision, the people will perish.”

Without strong, wise, decisive leadership, our country will struggle longer and harder to overcome these challenges. Here's my take on why Bush’s poll numbers have dropped like a rock, and why Republicans need to lead if they want to maintain their majority in 2007 and beyond:

By Krista Kafer krista555@msn.com I first engaged in deficit spending in high school. In between paychecks I borrowed money from my parents to buy cloths, cigarettes, diet coke and other “needs.” In college I combined deficit spending via credit cards with creative accounting measures like check floating. These monthly deficits led to thousands in debt. Paying it back, much like say quitting smoking was far more difficult that I expected when I started. I learned that spending more than one makes to pay for things one doesn’t need leads to hard times in the future.

This kind of behavior is somewhat understandable in a 20 year old. What excuse does Congress have?

By Bill Armstrong wlarmstrong@qwest.net

Editor's Note: Denver businessman Bill Armstrong, a Republican former member of the US Senate, US House, and Colorado Senate, fired off an email alert from New York to friends at home on Monday afternoon, voicing his concern about last-minute legislation that would further restrict freedom of expression in state campaigns. With Armstrong's permission, here's the text of that email.

Update, April 28: Vince Carroll analyzes Republican sponsor's logic after Democrats kill bill in committee.

Dear John: As I was leaving town yesterday for a week on the road, I read an article in the Sunday Denver Post that made my hair stand on end. HCR06-1010 has been introduced with bipartisan sponsorship in the Colorado House and, if adopted, would have the effect of drastically curtailing the so-called 527s, the independent political committees that have flourished in the aftermath of efforts to reform political campaigns by limiting candidate spending.

Re: Declaring a National Emergency April 11, 2006 President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President:

As members of the Republican Study Committee of Colorado, a caucus of the Colorado General Assembly, we have been shocked by the blatant, coordinated, and anti-American demonstrations on behalf of illegal aliens throughout the country, including the City of Denver, with little or no serious action on the part of the Federal Government to address the growing negative impact of illegal aliens on the American people, or to protect all states from invasion as required by Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution.

Will we act or not?By Former Governor Dick Lamm

Introduction by John Andrews: Defend Colorado Now, the ballot issue campaign to end non-emergency, non-federally-mandated taxpaid services to illegal aliens, of which I'm co-chairman, today held a Capitol press conference to release an economic impact study on this growing problem. Click here to join the campaign. And click here to see the full study, with the shocking total price tag for our state given on pages 2 and 8. Dick Lamm, honorary campaign chairman, commented as follows:

Last November, Colorado engaged in a contentious debate over Referenda C & D seeking the authority for the state government to keep some of the funds scheduled to be returned to the taxpayer under the TABOR Amendment. At the same time, without debate and with little discussion by the media or the political leaders, illegal immigration in Colorado was costing Colorado taxpayers two or three times the amount so bitterly fought over last November.

Now for the first time, Donald Rice sets forth in one study the most authoritative collection of estimates of the costs to Colorado taxpayers and workers of illegal immigration. Using only the most authentic of sources, Rice found that illegal immigration will cost Colorado over $1 billion in 2006 and promises to do so in growing amounts, next year and the year after, ad infinitum.