U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 21, 2008 06:15 PM UTC
80 Comments
As James Dobson, FoxNews and the Wall Street Journal have done. It’s the war on Christmas, stupid!
down here Pols. We never asked for your opinion or need your opinion either.
I am not trying to be snotty, just stating we are actually doing just fine. Our local governments are learning, just like EVERY AMERICAN HAS TO, that they need to stick to their budgets. In good times and bad.
most of us are smart enough to continue the sensible expenses even in bad times. Even if unemployeed you still change the oil in your car – because that’s cheaper than buying a new car when your existing one freezes up.
A restaurant health inspection is much cheaper than taking care of the people who get sick, miss work, etc from eating bad food.
if the kids in my neighborhood contract West Nile virus, I won’t take much solace in the idea that my government is learning to stick to its budget. We aren’t talking about luxuries here; we’re talking about critical services that are not being provided.
That’s the rub of this whole thing; cutting back in hard times is sensible… but in El Paso county, we’ve run our government like it’s “hard times” indefinitely, not because times were really hard, but because of ideology. Now that times really are looking to get hard, we’re left without much to cut.
dumbass, your county’s actions have an impact on the rest of us…especially when you are too damned cheap to inspect for diseases such as West Nile Virus, etc. If you were able to contain such outbreaks within your borders and to your own people, then I’d say let you do as you wish.
In short, I’m could care less about you all—I’m concerned about how your insanity is going to impact the rest of us.
you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. You see that a county turned down a tax increase and instantly in your itty bitty brain you decide we are ALL selfish. Well fuck you. Until you get the facts straight, mind your own business.
El Paso County tried and failed to raise our tax rate from 7.4% to 8.4%. But they were asking for way more than DOUBLE the actual money they say they needed to maintain all of their socialistic programs.
We collectively told them to make due like we all have to, and come back later with a realistic proposal.
infected mosquitos find its way to your arm…
As I explained, and you conveniently overlooked, it is my business. Unless you can contain your cesspool within your boundaries then it is your neighbors business.
As the article explained, unless you cheap assholes cough up some cash, then the state (that means, among others, ME) will have to start perfroming some of the required functions of your county.
we don’t allow people like you down here and we surely don’t want to be anywhere where people like you live.
I’d don’t particularly care to be around people like you either.
over people “like” you any day.
fortunately, like the Neanderthals, Gecko’s sad species is dwindling towards extinction.
Old man yells at clouds…
Ditto that. I’ll take Arvadonian any day over racist homophobe dumbass.
a suicidal racist homophobe dumbass smelling like garbage and woozy from the meth lab fumes, not to mention suffering from the rather pungent effects of e coli and salmonella poisoning.
“People like” Arvadonian are all around you, Gecko.
How in the hell does paying for child protection services or deputies to patrol the streets qualify as “socialistic” policy? It might be time for you to consider seceding from the United States all together and establishing the tax-free utopia of New Freeland — or whatever the hell you want to call your new country of one.
We don’t need child protective services once mothers stop working outside the home and raise their children like June Cleaver and Donna Reed did.
And if everyone would just exercise their Second Amendment rights more, we wouldn’t need government-financed law enforcement agencies.
don’t understand the difference between spending and investing in a way that does immediate good, creates value and saves tons of money in the long run.
It’s like refusing to “spend” on a roof repair until you suffer a catastrophe that makes your house unlivable, severely decreases it’s value and costs many times as much to repair as dealing with the roof in the first place, as an INVESTMENT, would have. That’s where the Bruce/Norquist idiotology gets you.
as the others.
Example of some of our leaders that we need to keep in check.
El Paso County asked for a full 1% tax rate increase. This would have brought in way more than double the funds they say they actually needed. We told them no. Come back with a reasonable request.
Now out mayor wants to do the same thing with a city tax. We will again have to tell him no too.
School District 11, the largest in this area asked for a mill levy override I think it was called? (Basically another tax hike.) It was turned down. Why? They are just as bad at managing their money as the city and county.
IE: most of the school buildings in this town just received massive amounts of tax funded work this past summer. Three schools in particular received close to a million dollars in new windows. Two weeks after the elections are over, School District 11 wants to close and board up the three schools that just received the million dollars worth of restorations!
That is why we say no when these dickheads keep crying wolf.
It’s that for years – for decades – the ideology of lower taxes and cutting spending has led to this. You can’t cut indefinitely. Eventually there are very serious consequences.
because Republicans aren’t interested in government goods and services unless it involves criminalizing women or killing brown skinned people. Government bad. Clean water and safe neighborhoods are irrelevant as long as the Gecko’s of the world can keep their grubby money. Republicans can’t govern or create a coherent society. It is every man for himself and when a Katrina hits it is the victims fault. Classy.
what tax rate is considered TOO much in your opinion?
I draw the line at 8%. We are at 7.4%.
Somewhere along the line the people we elect need to realize the pot does have a bottom, and that they need to be a little more efficient with OUR money.
We will vote to raise taxes when they can show us that they are spending what they have properly.
how a county that is dominated and run by Republicans who are suppose to be experts at running government can be so wasteful with your tax dollars. It just proves my point that Republicans are incapable people who rage about government and then when they get control of government suck at actually governing. Kind of like what Bill Owens and John Andrews did to the state government. Republicans are totally in control of Colorado Springs and El Paso county and they are terrible at their jobs according to Mr. Gecko. Don’t vote Republican is what I take away from his posts. Republicans waste taxpayer dollars.
liberal yuppie tendacy in our officials.
And by the way, not every person in this town is conservative. Many are limpwristedcommielovinprogressingtowardsocialism liberals.
I know it is a shame. We want them out too but there are laws we have to adhere to. We can’t just shoot them ya know.
We liberals rarely get credit for corrupting movement conservatives in the most conservative bastion of conservatism. I think you are crazy to blame liberals for your poorly run county but I did chuckle at your writing. It made me smile. Thanks for a light hearted response.
naturally you get lousy inefficient government. If they made it efficient and effective they’d be ruining their favorite talking points. C Springs, after all these years of Norquist style policy domination, would be the model for getting everything done that needs to be done, the best schools, municipal services, etc., without over-spending if the pet theories of the anti- tax, anti-investment in the future right held water. C Springs, instead, is proof that those ideas are bankrupt. What a dump!
You have obvously never been here. And as I have stated along with NEWSMAN, our tax rate is 7.4%. How much is yours? How much is enough? What would you say if your tax rate was 7.4% and your county wanted to raise it an additional 1%? Especially knowing that amount was more than twice what they themselves said they actually need?
Keep talking your liberal garbage. It just shows how narrow minded you guys are.
a willingness to pay for capital investments, but there isn’t the money available for maintaining and keeping the property open.
Interesting…
That should be plenty.
Wait until the county can’t fix a big pothole until next month and your are flying along the road breathing deeply of that low tax air…….
What do you mean?
If our sales tax rate is 7.4%, isn’t that almost obscene?
What more can we give?
And you might want to give some thought to why that rate is 7.4%. It’s because you live in a one-party county where lack of competition leads to wasteful spending, even by Republicans.
Jeffco was like that, and reach its zenith of wasteful government spending in the early ’90s when the Republican majority on the board of commissioners authorized the building of the Taj Mahal at an obscene price.
The voters fixed the problem by ditching the Republicans commissioners, at least temporarily.
You might want to elect a Democratic majority to your board of commissioners, Gecko.
that Republicans can’t govern. They boast about their financial prowess but they are clueless about finding innovative solutions to difficult cultural problems. Even things as simple as clean restraurants are beyond them. Efficient government is alien to their personalities so it is rare when Republicans actually figure out how to provide public services and goods without wasting a lot of taxpayer money. It is the ultimate irony of the Reagan worship that the most ideological adherents are the most inept at providing government services at a reasonable cost. Like drunken sailors, they are totally incapable of reigning in their spending and produce a balanced budget. Gecko hates liberals but it is the lackluster performance of his Republican idols that has produced this intolerable condition where basic services can’t be provided by a 7.4% tax. We feel for you Gecko. You hate liberals but you can’t admit that conservatives with their borrow and spend policies are even more incompetent. It must suck to live in among so many incompetent Republicans.
How many guns do you own now with your Bush tax cuts and your socialistic rebate?
The thing is, they probably won’t see a single giant problem out of this. Rather, more people will get sick, more people will die, more children will suffer. But it’s only in the statistics that you see the decline in the quality of life.
They may decide to continue with low taxes and just wonder why bad things happen to good people. Because one thing the fundamentalist right has shown, they aren’t terribly interested in science or facts.
1. Loss of business base. Remember, the original rationale for low city taxes was as incentive to draw business. In particular, the relocation of fundamentalist groups to CS was in part driven by this. If CS becomes an unattractive place for a business, and particularly if the influence of fundamentalist groups decreases, then the balance will tip the other way.
2. Impact on Ft Carson. I don’t know that there is a direct connection, but if the army concludes that declining infrastructure in the community is negatively affecting their operations, that will get attention in a hurry.
3. The people change their minds (or their demographics). Pols outdated reference to Kansas is ironic; the present reallty is that Kansas voters got tired of fundamentalists, a number of establishment Republicans actually converted to Democrats, and though Kansas is still a red state, it has a Dem governor and the social/fiscal conservatives have lost their chokehold. And look at Colorado–the voters eventually got fed up with do-nothing govt and voted in the opposition party who ran on the platform that govt could and should be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
A related aspect is potential for demographic-driven changes in voter attitudes (e.g., younger voters, new families etc).
For now CS may be the “old South” of Colorado–somewhat out of the mainstream. But things can change. And I don’t necessarily think that ridiculing CS or posting snide articles on CoPols helps a lot.
I agree with David. It’s the frog in the pot analogy. It’s highly doubtful that CS will lose its headline businesses: the military and the fundamental evangelical organizations. I agree with your comment that it will be the ‘Old South’ of Colorado. In ten years, we’ll wonder what happened to CS, politically and economically. It will be like Pueblo (until this recent Dem resurgence) used to be to the rest of the state. [No offense to Pueblo in that comment, it just seems to me that it has been gathering more power, state-wide, in the last several years.]
But aren’t there some significant differences between the city and county in how they are handling all of this?
And it may be possible to shift attitudes about govt enuf to make it more functional without having to completely re-set the basic conservatism of the area.
Can’t speak to your query about city vs county, locals would know better.
That is not “No Government”, or even less Government.
Raising it to 8.4% would make COS among the highest sales tax rates in the state. Not a Smart thing to do, which is why it went down in flames, especially in this economic climate.
1A failed because it was ill conceived and poorly structured, irregardless of the mega good intentions it’s proponents (Also Republicans BTW) had.
Don’t believe your own propaganda about COS. it’s a great place to live, and we have good jails, police, fire and Sheriff protection. It could be even better.
If all that was asked for was Sheriff’s Dept. related, and if it was the quarter cent increase or even a half cent increase, directed just at the county Sheriff, and Jails, it would have got my vote.
We have a (CC)County Commission made up of both Liberals, Conservatives and moderates. Yes we have true RINO’s here. No Democrats hold county wide office, or any CC seats. If you are a moderate Dem, and want to have a prayer of winning, you switch to the Republican Party and Run as a Moderate Republican.
The Republican office holders down there are a bunch of incompetent tax and spend liberals? Maybe you guys should consider electing a Democrat or two…
I have been bringin this fact up for a long time, only to have it ignored.
The libs on this site are for ANY tax increase. No matter how much, no matter what it is for, and no matter if it is actually needed or not.
I have tried and tried to explain that just because a tax proposal is brought up and turned down by voters, doesn’t necessarily mean we are all anti tax brain dead stupid freakin conservatives.
They don’t know the facts, and when the facts are presented to them, they choose to ignore it. I guess it is more fun with their little school girl gang mentality to make fun of the new kid (us). “He’s not one of us. He’s one of them.”
Pretty sad that there are people like that in this state.
In the mean time hopefully we can eliminate the libs and even r’s that are in charge here that want to do things the easy way……raise taxes first. Balance the budget as a last resort.
I’ve publically come out against many tax increases – including being called a grinch for being one of the few to encourage a no vote on the sales tax increase for helping the disabled.
A lot of us libs don’t blindly support any tax increase. We do support ones that are a good investment (it’s our free-enterprise business background that causes that).
What tax rate is enough?
8%/
9%?
10%?
11%?
What are you taxing, what other taxes are in place, and what services is that level of government providing? I think you may have a point that your tax rate is not the problem, but rather your political leaders are poor managers. But if that is the case, I think you will need to vote Democratic to get competent leadership in.
C’mon Gecko, you can’t be serious about the folks on this site being for any old tax increase. Nobody LIKES paying taxes. Tax day is as painful for me as it for you, I’m sure.
Some of us simply recognize that if we are to enjoy the government services we rely on–including police, fire protection, roads, public health and so on–then we have to suck it up and pay them. As others as pointed out here, we consider them INVESTMENTS in our ability to run successful businesses and in our quality of life rather than undeserved government handouts.
Could some be delivered in a more efficient manner? Sure, but so could any service or product offered by any Fortune 500 company. Perfection is not attainable, especially in large organizations.
I’m more than willing to engage in conversation without devolving into a mean-spirited, name-calling spat, and it seems like there are many others who will, too. But you have to keep your end of the bargain. You’ve taken after posters here like they’re the anti-Christ over the years. Remember the golden rule, bro…
if liberals were in charge and the money wasn’t being siphoned off for Focus on the Family crusades to get rid of teh gays.
Why don’t you come up with some facts on how this 7.4% gets spent. How much income does 7.4% represent and what are the basic breakdowns for security services like police and fire and how much is fluff? Give us some perspective man. Don’t just whine about the rate tell us what it is being used for.
I don’t think that knowing the rate gives us much usable information. The more important question is what are the community’s needs? If CS has a bigger problem with something (like crappier roads, higher fire rate, whatever) as compared to other municipalities, it warrants a larger chunk of money. The rate should correspond to the needs.
If the issue is that the tax dollars are being obviously wasted, that’s a matter to take care of on election day, no?
So, what public services do you think are worthy, Gecko?
(You don’t need to answer – I know…)
Since Ritter has bankrupted the state, with both 58 & 59 failing, I submit the following idea for one of his TV spots in two years:
It begins with four kids looking innocently into the man’s eyes who just destroyed their bright futures’ with a California-like “state debt” when he begins to speak:
“Well Kids, how do you like your home, Colorado? Where sink-holes on highways are plentiful, there’s an illegal immigrant with an agricultural trespassing ticket in every job–keeping unemployment high and wages depressed, and of course, where the fees are so ridiculous and regressive, that when you leave the DMV you get the same dirty feeling as when the beer man walks over to you and hands your cold one then says “twenty bucks” for the twelve ounce you just bought……”
Yeah, can’t wait for that one, lol. But on another note, CS people, finish your freakin highway! If it’s not done by the time I go through your city again, I’m going to lose it.
what’s wrong with our highway? COSMIX finished a long time ago. Years, I think. Did they tear it up again? I’ll admit we west siders pretty much stay at home and hide from the rest of the city, but I haven’t seen construction for some time.
thanks to the 1% tax increase in 2005. They are repairing, under warranty, some of I-25 at Rockrimmon but the rest is great.
State and federal.
That 1% is RTA tax
It was that way long before he became governor. You can blame Ritter for plenty of things, but bankrupting the state is not one of them. That didn’t happen on his watch.
This would be like blaming President-elect Obama for the massive Federal deficit he’ll inherit in January.
Planning and investment does. You can pay now or you can pay later, and paying later is a helluva lot more expensive. Suicide prevention is cheaper (and more moral) that an emergency room after a suicide attempt.
CSprings’ fundie base and unwillingness to spend on public infrastructure is costing it economically. According to one eco devo person I talked to, there are a number of high-tech companies that have considered moving there because the natural beauty, but are turned off by the insularity and the unwillingness to invest in quality of life supports like roads, schools, and public services.
Colorado Springs is not, as Gecko likes to pretend, just a haven for the know-nothing taxophobe right. Nor is it about to collapse because of the crazed irrationality of local voters, who are supposedly cutting off their noses to spite their faces. In fact, the city has supported multiple sales tax increases/bond issues in recent years, including measures to fund open space, transportation, public safety, parks, and capital improvements. The most recent proposals were reasonable enough, but neither well-presented nor well-conceived. To ask folks in any jurisdiction to approve a substantial sales tax increase during a presidential election, with the most crowded statewide ballot in history, and in the midst of a world financial meltdown-that’s not exactly a recipe for success. The Health Dept. cutbacks are regrettable and, I suspect, will be reversed by voter approval of new revenue in the future.
In sum: we’re not all nuts down here-and we’re even pretty progressive in many ways. Just as an example: the city council just approved the use of open space funds to buy corral bluffs, 500+ acres on the eastern border of the Springs, because of its paleontological significance, and value as open space. The site had previously been considered for an off-road vehicle park! Local environmental activists opposed the plan, and persuaded council to approve the open space purchase.
So all of you crazed Denver-Boulder lib’ruls-back off, Mofos!! And let me remind you-Dickie Wadhams lives up there, not down here. We got rid of Bruce-now you get rid of Wadhams!!
He’s doing wonders for Democrats all over Colorado.
Yeah, we’ve done a few reasonable things here… but look around! We are no longer maintaining anything close to the minimum legal number of inspections of food-service establishments. We’re ignoring communicative diseases. That’s not a reasonable state of affairs. Fact is, we Springs residents have some work to do. The northerners (by which I mean northern Colorado Springs) will fight us every step of the way, but it’s necessary work.
No loss
mine always says: “Colorado Springs. The city of wide streets and narrow minds.”
aren’t nearly that wide.
nearly as narrow either….
The streets of C Springs pretty much roll up.
Boulder’s great-but the Springs is better on a Sunday-better & less crowded bike trails, substantially more gorgeous historic neighborhoods, better Sunday brunches, cooler bars with prettier girls, hunkier guys, lower prices-and you don’t have worry about your favorite skanky dive being closed by some pesty guv’mint health inspectors!
but the Springs is a great place to live with lot’s to do.
My folks owned a western store in Manitou for over 20 years. That town really truly sucks. Everyone is some sort of hippy artist. My dad, before he crashed his Harley and killed his ass, had to retire and let my mom run the store because he would get in fights with all the yuppie’s that came in “browsing”. Hurt their business too much.
But in the Springs, Benny’s Bar has been transformed into a pretty cool biker hangout, especially since the Navajo Hogan shut down.
Southside Johnnie’s is good if you want to eat and don’t mind drinkin with a bunch of wannabees hanging around.
Dirty parks, dirty streets, lousy traffic… you must be high if you like that.
Except downtown. They keep downtown nice. It’s weird.
Colorado Springs isn’t any dirtier or more congested than say, Denver. And if we were so “drown the baby” in our mentality down here, wouldn’t we have also voted for Doug Bruce’s measures against the Stormwater runoff fees? Would we have the best Public Parks system in the state, with more public open space than any other county in the state?
Maybe we should talk about how the whole state hates the Developmentally Disabled, or Education, after all of those failed by a large margin.
You hate those of us who are Republicans and therefore where we live must necessarily be the worst place in the state to live. We get your bigotry Ari.
That all being said, it is too bad that 1A did not pass, there is a need for more funding at the county level here. But with the press trumpeting how we are entering the next Great Depression, and all the other bad economic news that was a constant drumbeat up to the election, it’s not really surprising that people were afraid to give out more money to government.
I don’t hate you or anybody. I’m disappointed in you for being what you’re accusing me of – something that came out as the POTUS race came down to the wire, when suddenly all liberals were bad – but hate? Hardly.
But I stand by my observations about COS. It’s nowhere as nice as you think it is. The richer parts, maybe, but not the working class sections.
and a person who lives where you describe will doubt that your feelings are warm and fuzzy. And as a working class guy, I sure don’t feel that where I am is a “dump” or a “slum”. I used to travel daily between the Springs and Denver as a courier, and travel up there pretty often now in my wrecker, and there is no way that Denver is any cleaner, or less congested than here.
Restaurant health inspections are one of those things where a small investment gives a large return. But when it isn’t done, the cost to society is not direct & obvious.
The cuts in county health and safety programs are where I truly worry. When someone like County Commissioner Sally Clark starts saying that they need more funds or they have to start cutting in those areas of the budget, you know there is a problem. (For those unfamiliar with the lady, she got her start as an activist who prevented the closing of a fire station on COS west side. Got elected to City Council, then County Commission. She is not one to make any such cuts without any other options.)
…Colorado Springs should have orange cones around it and police tape. Does it?
“Our local governments are learning, just like EVERY AMERICAN HAS TO, that they need to stick to their budgets. In good times and bad.”
For the curious, check out the El Paso County data from a late-September budget presentation, available on the El Paso County website http://www.elpasoco.com/ under Our Government then Budget then 2009 Budget Information. Look at the data comparing mill levies and property tax revenues among Colorado’s ten largest counties, plus a specific history of El Paso County budget cutting from 2005 to the present: 26 percent reduction in base budget plus more to come for 2009.
So it really isn’t about “sticking to budgets,” but rather about drowning government in a bathtub. It’s more than management, it’s ideological.
Surely you’re not suggesting that sales tax isn’t the only tax. There are others?
Part of the A-58 opponents’ complaint was that you can’t judge the tax structure without considering sales tax. Now those same people are pretending that’s all there is.