The Colorado Index

Want to Read a Troubling Editorial This Morning?

Go no farther than the Denver Post editorial by David Peterson.  It includes the following sentence:

To paraphrase the old quote about General Motors, "What's good for grocery workers is good for America."

One wonders where the economics student who wrote it has been over the past several months.

If any companies in any industry in America can afford to do the right thing and boost employee incomes and pensions, grocery chains are at the top of a short list. The wage boosts being sought are neither outrageous nor excessive — especially relative to the growth of their top executives' pay the past decade. The good news is that the companies and the union that represents their workers are back at the bargaining table to try to reach an agreement by June 15.

He is proposing that the Grocery companies follow the exact compliant to unions path that led to the GM bankruptcy.  I guess that he thinks that having the government bail out the grocery industry will be "good for America."  After all, it is another industry that can't be allowed to fail.

Save us from the ignorance of the ivory tower, and the ignorance of David Patterson.

Denver Post Admits Hyper-Inflation A Real Possibility

At the end of one of the Denver Post's long series of editorials promoting more government spending, the Denver Post includes this sentence:

 If we experience hyper-inflation because of increased federal spending, Colorado could go bust.

Apparently the Denver Post believes that the way to adjust to, as opposed to combat hyper inflation is to turn on the spending spigots full blast. It is the Obama solution.

This is why this blog has a category "the Denver Post Embarrasses Itself."

You Snooze, You Lose

In yet another example of why the print media needs to meet the fate that seems to await them, the Denver Post published an editorial on Mike May's new proposal for redistricting last night.

I planned to write about it this morning, but the editorial is gone, and all evidence that it ever existed is gone is well.

When I Googled to try to find it, this is all that came up.

While the editorial wasn't that well written, and didn't come down on either side, it provided more information than is now available.

The Numbers Behind Xcel's Rate Increase

Xcel energy is asking for a $4.50 monthly base rate hike and is likely to get it. 

According to the Denver Post, they have invested $1.7 billion in Colorado since 2006 and they would like to get that money back.

If one assumes that Xcel has just over a million customers in Colorado and charges each an additional $55 a year in base rates, it will take about 31 years to pay back that investment, and that doesn't include interest.

Those numbers suggest that a more realistic base rate increase would be in the neighborhood of $100 or more per household per year, depending on the interest rate Xcel has to pay and the length of the payback period.  We used 1.2 million customers, 6%, and 30 years.  Xcel had 1.2 million customers in 2003, but we did not include the built in profit that the PUC will allow.

That $100 per household number assumes that Xcel doesn't invest another dime in Colorado. Expect another $4.50 a month bump next year and the year after.  Ten years of rate expansions of this magnitude is real money for a lot of people.

Of course, Bill Ritter wants to push his new energy economy on the backs of rate payers. His new energy economy isn't going to be cheap, and rate payers will pick up the tab. Xcel will get a profit on every dime they invest, so they are quite willing to help Ritter, because he is helping them.

The numbers and the politics say that rate payers will be paying as much as $450 a year in base charges within ten years.  That is before a single watt is used.

Not all of Bill Ritter's tax increases are the visible kind, and this is one.

As an aside, note that the Denver Post did not include a word about the amount Xcel has invested in high cost wind and solar energy and the transmission lines needed to support them.

The Denver Post Makes a Promise

It would be a shame not to point out the attempt by the Denver Post to take up the slack in Denver, if only to bookmark it.

It is nice to see pictures of Singleton and Moore.

The End Of An Era

The fate of the Rocky Mountain News arrived today.  Starting Saturday, Denver will be a one-newspaper town.

The Rocky Mountain News publishes its last paper tomorrow.

Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps, broke the news to the Rocky staff at noon today, ending nearly three months of speculation over the paper's future. He called the paper a victim of a terrible economy and an upheaval in the newspaper industry.

"Denver can't support two newspapers anymore," Boehne told staffers, some of whom cried at the news.

This is not a surprising turn of events. The death of the Rocky Mountain News was expected for months.  However, the immediacy of the closing is akin to a death in the family. It is sad to see the Rocky Mountain News go after nearly 150 years of publication.

Of course, reverting to a one-newspaper town now gives the Denver Post a monopoly.  Without the Rocky to keep the Post semi-honest, the Post will have even more opportunities to embarrass itself.  However, in this environment, the Post will have to move to attract Rocky subscribers or risk going out of business as well.

We in the "new media" can attempt to keep the Post honest.  However, there is no substitute for a reporter who follows stories full-time (as opposed to bloggers who have a day job).  Joshua Sharf at View From a Height made some similar comments on this matter.

And, to the soon-to-be former Rocky employees, I wish you good luck in your future endeavors.

by Civil Sense

Denver Post Promotes More Taxes

Dog bites man.  Today the Denver Post has not one, but two editorials promoting higher taxes.

The Colorado Contractors association is promoting FASTER in the mistaken belief that they will benefit from the higher fees.  The history of Democrat sponsored tax and fee increases is one of bait and switch.  Nothing in FASTER prevents collecting the new fees and directing them away from road construction.

Ed (Tax and Spend) Quillen doesn't much like FASTER.  He would prefer a 50 cent a gallon gas tax that would, he thinks, raise $1 Billion rather than the paltry $250 million that FASTER will raise.  

Like most liberals who are disconnected from reality.  He pretends in one paragraph that gasoline will never again sell for more than $4/gallon:

Why not increase the gasoline tax by 50 cents a gallon to 72 cents? The current pump price would go from $1.75 to $2.25 — still a relief from the $4.25 of last summer.

And yet in another, he hopes that his tax, combined with future higher gas taxes depresses consumption:

If consumption dropped, even by 20 or 30 percent, there would still be more than enough money to maintain our roads, with the added benefit of less pollution and congestion.

Like any tax and spend liberal, he has no intention of using the money for highway construction:

If consumption stayed at the current statewide level, about 2.3 billion gallons a year, then annual revenue would increase by more than $1 billion a year, more than enough to fix the $500-million-a-year highway maintenance shortfall identified last year by Gov. Bill Ritter's Blue Ribbon Transportation Finance and Implementation Panel. The surplus could go to mass transit, improved bikeways and other ways of getting around. Even hard-core drivers should favor this — the more people who aren't using the road, the more pleasant your driving experience.

Isn't it nice to know that the Denver Post is working overtime to increase your taxes?

How Many More Vices Should Colorado Tax?

Not only does the Denver Post love nearly every tax increase proposed, today's house editorial tries to give legislators ideas about new streams of revenue.  It is entitled, "Colorado needs a new drug (to raise taxes on)."

If cigarettes weren't so bad for your health, we'd say smoke 'em if you got 'em. In 2004, voters raised the state tax on cigarettes from 20 cents a pack to 84 cents to fund health-care and smoking-prevention programs. Taxes on other tobacco products also went up. (snip)

Maybe our lawmakers, looking for ways to trim $625 million from the budget, should look for other nervous habits to tax. (Stay off the booze, though. Tax collections on liquor were 2.6 percent below forecasts, and besides, those of us in newspapers could use a drink.)

Ice cream maybe? What about coffee?

Chocolate might do it. Heck, a higher tax levied on chocolate just might erase the state's shortfall as we indulge our nervous selves through this recession.

The Post embarrasses itself not only with its grammatical error (the headline should read "Colorado needs a new drug (on which to raise taxes)")  but with its salivating over new potential sources of plunder.  Of course, ice cream and chocolate are not technically drugs, either, though the nannyists want us to eat less of it, anyway.  However, this article misses two important drugs where taxation could form a new governmental revenue stream. 

First, with all the movement toward marijuana decriminalization, legalization and taxation of the drug could help plug the budget hole.  As for the public safety issues, the state has no problem taxing alcohol which arguably has a far greater harmful potential than marijuana.  Plus, there are many higher-income people in the Denver-Boulder area who would gladly purchase this substance legally, thus allowing for a nice payday in revenue.

The second idea is one to which the Denver Post is addicted: government spending.  To people in power, taxing people to "spread the wealth" is a popular sport.  Perhaps taxing the advocates of higher taxes and the beneficiaries of these pork programs would not increase revenue, but it may bring spending back in line with reality.

by Civil Sense

Denver Newspapers Self Destructing

Imagine a world without both the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News.  It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that the recession could drive them both out of business.

The recession and some bad blood.  The Denver Post is calling it a "Newspaper War."

It is being reported that while Scripps, which owns the Rocky Mountain News and one half of the Denver Newspaper Agency, was eating $11 million in operating costs last year, The Denver Post was borrowing a similar amount from the DNA to meet its payroll.

In short, it appears that the Post was being subsidized by the Rocky without the Rocky's knowledge.

Now, the Post appears to be trying to interfere with the sale of the Rocky by publicly stating that it will buy the remainder of the DNA and refuse to publish the Rocky.

Lawsuitville, here we come.  If Scripps sues The Denver Post and wins, the Denver Post will likely have to be sold or closed.  Denver could be without a major newspaper.

Of course, there is that Federal bailout.  While the Democrats apparently think condom manufacturers don't need a bailout after all, they will be sympathetic to those who are and have been sympathetic to them.  We all pay.

Trial Lawyer Calls Plain Meaning Of Constitution Text A Myth

Terrance R. Kelly, a lawyer for a firm in Denver, wrote an essay for the Denver Post's site about the alleged "myths" of TABOR.  The intelligently written article on its face  masks some twisted logic.  The following contains the crux of Kelly's argument.

Finally, many if not most TABOR conflicts cannot be resolved by solely pouring over the text. Over the past twenty-five years, the work of federal constitutional interpretation has developed a uniquely aggressive form of literal fundamentalism, which form has also infected the states.

This school of interpretation, like some bible interpreters, claims to divine constitutional "meaning" and "intent" solely from the text, because the text alone represents the meaning and intent of the law-writer - the only path to the Holy Grail of constitutional conclusions.

This viral interpretive method seeks to destroy all other methodologies. It teaches that examining the text's context, or its history, or its precedents, or its results, or its consequences, or any other contribution to a rational analysis, is a great heresy.

Terrance R. Kelly makes a rather simplistic argument.  While the context, history, and precedents are relevant to textual interpretation, they do not supercede the plain meaning of the text.  Lets pretend that the text of the constitution does not matter and only the results or the consequences matter?  Therefore, the next time one gets a speeding ticket or a tax bill, do not pay it.  Call the plain text reading of the law a "myth" since one does not like the results.  Then, Terrance R. Kelley can represent your case pro bono. After all, only the results or consequences count, not the text of the law.

A more cynical person might say that not accepting the plain text meaning of the constitution or the law provides greater potential loopholes in the law.  More loopholes mean more "interpretations" that a trial lawyer could invent and potentially exploit (for additional fees, of course). 

Conversely, accepting the plain meaning of the text means that one may not require a lawyer to interpret it.  This renders lawyers such as Terrance R. Kelly less necessary, and that affects their bottom line.  Mr. Kelly could have simply argued for repealing TABOR spending and revenue limits via a vote of the people.  That is much more honest than forcing the constitution to match one's desired result instead of the text within the document.

by Civil Sense