January 13, 2011 07:55 PM UTC

Gold Dome Bipartisanship Fading Fast

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Independent’s Joseph Boven reports this morning:

With a prayer from Archbishop Charles Chaput that called for legislators to consider the future of both the born and unborn in their decision making, Republicans officially took control of the Colorado House of Representatives as the Colorado General Assembly opened for business Wednesday. While both Speaker of the House Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, and Minority Leader Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, called for bi-partisan cooperation, conflicts in ideology began to emerge in calls for spending caps, government cuts and even in the names of committees.

“We must and we will adhere to our core principles and to the will of the people of Colorado,” McNulty said addressing the House. “Along with tax relief and regulation reform, we are committed to reinstituting a state spending limit to protect future generations from government spending excesses. If we have learned anything from the past few years it is that excessive governmental spending prolongs economic recessions-it does not shorten them.”

…Pace said that every dollar given out as tax breaks to special interests and corporations translate into larger class sizes for “our children’s schools, reduced services for the elderly and greater hardship for those who are physically and economically disadvantaged.”

Pace said that failing to fund governmental services will result in busier emergency rooms, overcrowded prisons, higher-dropout rates, higher crime rates and higher unemployment. “In short, if we invest just a little up front we will save a lot down the road,” Pace said.

“State government is not a solution for all problems… But to neglect services or slash programs without method, to penalize state workers and teachers to score political points, to demonize people because of their skin color or national origins and to balance our budget on the backs of the poor, the elderly and the back of the young. These are not acceptable solutions to the people of Colorado and they should not be acceptable to any of us,” Pace said.

And with that, familiar battle lines are drawn. This is the first split legislature to convene in Colorado since 2002, and the state faces a budget crisis this year considerably worse than any faced by the unified Democratic state government up to now. Now, with Republicans in narrow control of one chamber, their proposals will stand out in sharper relief–as the building blocks of a solution, or as continuing ideological obstruction and denial.

We’ll start with one question: where’s that “tax relief” supposed to come from?