February 04, 2025 11:12 AM UTC

That's Not The Way To Save Coloradans Money

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Although political news so far this year has been dominated by events in Washington, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago, back home in Denver the Republican minority in the Colorado Senate is pushing a package of bills repealing various fees charged by the state that pay for important programs and services while the so-called Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) has kept its fiscal boot firmly on the throat of lawmakers. Colorado Newsline’s Sara Wilson reported in mid-January:

“People are facing an economic reality that grows more daunting by the day,” Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, said Tuesday during a press conference at the Capitol. “This affordability crisis is a direct result of the misguided policies that were created in this very building.”

Part of the solution, he said, is to claw back the various fees Democrats in the Legislature have passed in recent years. Fees are distinct from taxes in Colorado because they are not subject to voter approval under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Colorado collected about $23.3 billion in fee revenue in the 2023 fiscal year, according to the right-leaning Common Sense Institute.

Lundeen unveiled a literal pile of cash at the press conference — $4,500 stacked in a neat tower — to illustrate the potential savings Republicans want to see…

First of all, almost $3,000 of these supposed savings are supposedly from reforms to construction defects laws–which as we’ve written about for years in this space would at best indirectly and maybe not at all reduce housing costs, while leaving consumers holding the bag for shoddy construction. As for the rest, we’ve already pointed out the inflated assumptions these “savings” rest on:

Republicans calculate that repealing the shopping bag fee, for example, would save people $90 annually. That assumes an annual use of 900 non-reusable bags per year. The Legislature approved a plastic bag ban in 2021 and imposed a fee on paper bags, and it went fully into effect last year, with an exemption for smaller stores.

A repeal of the delivery fee would save Coloradans $45, Republicans say, assuming about 166 deliveries through services like DoorDash and Uber Eats per year.

Of course, many Colorado consumers have switched to reusable bags and don’t pay a shopping bag fee at all. Even if you’re still using paper bags, 900 bags a year sounds like an awful lot of bags. The same with 166 food deliveries in a year, almost one every other day? There may be a small percentage of consumers that dependent on Uber Eats, but in those cases a 29-cent delivery fee isn’t what’s breaking the bank.

Strange move to go after the funding the protects our kids by ensuring childcare workers go through background checks–a bill that received strong bipartisan support, incl Republican sponsors in both House & Senate. But I guess honesty has never been their forte. #copolitics https://t.co/HgnZXhhtsr

— Chris deGruy Kennedy (@cdegruykennedy) January 28, 2025

Like we said last month, saving Coloradans $4,500 sounds great on its surface. But what exactly are the fees Republicans want to repeal, how often do Coloradans actually pay them–and most importantly, why do they exist to begin with? As the Colorado Times Recorder’s Owen Swallow reports, “law and order” conservatives ought to blink some of the details:

The House GOP is also proposing repealing the licensing fee that funds background checks for substitute teachers at childcare facilities, and the boating use fee from 2008 that funds the program to keep invasive zebra mussels out of our lakes.

While State Republicans have tried to paint these fees as the result of overzealous Democratic lawmakers, Bell Policy Center Director Chris Kennedy, a former legislator who was in office when these targeted bills were passed, noted on X that they were enacted with Republican support.

“Strange move to go after the funding the protects our kids by ensuring childcare workers go through background checks — a bill that received strong bipartisan support, including Republican sponsors in both House & Senate. But I guess honesty has never been their forte,” Kennedy posted. [Pols emphasis]

Repealing background check fees for childcare workers has a less positive ring to it than “saving Coloradans $4,500,” doesn’t it? Another fee Republicans are up in arms about is an $82 fee for psychologist licensure–a fee you don’t pay unless you’re a psychologist, and we’re having real trouble coming up with a reason why psychologists should not be licensed. Again, these fees all have their justification in the fiscal chokehold imposed on the state by TABOR, which would otherwise require that every such revenue source be subject to a statewide vote. If you think Colorado’s ballot is unwieldy today, imagine a ballot question for every professional license.

Like so many disingenuous exercises before it, this is a campaign that relies on not reading beyond the headlines. Under scrutiny, their whole argument just falls apart.