The Grand Junction Sentinel headline today says it all: "Hickenlooper Proposes Huge Budget Cuts." Yes, while Colorado's new governor campaigned on promises of being an education governor, he has just proposed historically massive cuts to Colorado's already comparatively underfunded public schools. If that wasn't enough, he had the nerve to pretend he isn't choosing this path for his state, telling reporters "There's nothing I've ever grappled with as long and hard as" education cuts.
Evidently, we should all shed tears for the allegedly remorseful guv... except, we shouldn't. Because he's as much making this choice as circumstances are dictating it.
Yes, it's true - the new governor must propose a balanced budget and the legislature cannot raise revenues in the short-term. Thus, the education cuts. However, it is also true that this governor has been running around Colorado insisting he cares about education while simultaneously saying he opposes efforts to raise public revenues through any changes to Colorado's hideously regressive tax code.
That's right, two weeks ago, our millionaire governor said he wants to make taxes on his corporate friends even more regressive (read: lower) than they already are. Then last week, at the very moment he was putting the finishing touches on his huge education cuts, the governor said he would use his bully pulpit to oppose a ballot measure to make Colorado's income tax slightly more progressive and in the process raise revenues to close the state's budget gap. Though this ballot measure would mean the same or lower taxes for most households in Colorado, Hickenlooper apparently doesn't like that it would slightly raise taxes on his fellow millionaires - even though it would also rescue the schools he publicly purports to care about.
This is class solidarity at its most powerful - a millionaire politician going to the wall for his millionaire brethren, with the hope that if he just stages enough photo-ops wearing pajamas while reading to kids, everyone will forget what he's really all about.
But now it's all too obvious to ignore. When you put Hick's budget cuts next to his royalist posture on taxes, we see that when it comes to a choice between defending the extremely wealthy and saving the basic public services the rest of us non-millionaires rely on, our new governor has decided which side he's on: Not ours.
ADDENDUM: Two other points to note. First, if you believe Hick's mantra that tax cuts will create jobs, read this Associated Press story and then STFU. Also, isn't it telling that within the 24 hour period that these budget cuts were announced, Colorado Sen. Michael "Education Is My Priority" Bennet (ie. the former school superintendent) isn't protesting the cuts, but instead insisting that the Obama budget doesn't cut domestic spending enough? Oh, that's right, I forgot - he was just Sen. Education on the campaign trail - in Washington, he's more like Sen. Thurston Bennet the IIId. My bad.
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(David, could you please do a piece on handicapped and DD funding in this state. Those of us who are parents or caretakers are not unionized and have little sway. The DD folks we love and care for have even less. Thanks.)
"DEAN has estimated the deal has lost $51 million to date, although no actual accounting has been provided to the public or school board members. Recent testimony at the statehouse on the state pension fund concluded that the deal was $78 million underwater, and created risk for the state.
Matters are actually worse, however. DPS bonds recently failed (there were no buyers) at auction, recently, triggering a provision in which DPS pays the Belgian firm to make a market. In traditional public finance markets, market makers are not paid to transact bond sales, but instead rely upon the “spread†between bid and ask price to underwrite the cost and make a profit. Thus the transactions themselves pay the cost of liquidity. In the current DPS deal, taxpayers pay to create the liquidity on a transaction already costing millions. That cost could run $25 million a year, enough to pay over 350 classroom teachers."
http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/news-mainmenu-2/1-latest/5562-bennets-swap-cost-dps-millions.html
Public Schools have been sub-par for years administrators make WAY too much money at an elementary or middle school; surpassing the 100,000 dollar mark. Based on the way I see my sons school is ran, that is way too much. Also people complain that teachers make too little money, a teacher usually starts around 40,000 dollars for 3 months off a year that is a good wage, if they worked all year they would make a little over 50,000 pretty good for the level of job they take.
But uou know damn well why Hick is presently set against taxes. If he fought for our progressive policies, little investment would accrue here, some could even leave. Give the governor some time to work through this dismal state of economic affairs brought to us all by the Colorado GOP.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/the-10-states-running-out_n_820472.html#s236856&title=10_Utah
Apparently now that we have been acknowledged as number one, we intend to fight to keep that crown. GO TEAM !
Sterling Greenwood/AspenFreePress