Amendment 87: Economy Killer or Fiscal Panacea?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I definitely got a lot of I mean, I definitely say that, like, you know, first of all, there were a lot of people.

There are a lot of people just frustrated with the with the contradictions that that that come with Governor Jared Polis.

I mean, we heard on the one hand that he believes in investments in early childhood education and K-12 and public transit investments.

And at the same time, he breaks down when we talk about how to pay for these things.

And, you know, I mean, I'll say, I mean, obviously it's no secret to anyone who's been following Colorado politics how much Governor Polis, I think, hates income taxes.

He doesn't really believe that it's a responsible way to raise revenue for government.

I think what I was not prepared for was how – voraciously he would go after amendment 87 the progressive income tax and what was particularly frustrating and what i thought some people who listen to where they were frustrated about was that i didn't push back harder on on one thing in particular because what we we heard from governor polis was not just opposition to a graduated income tax but he actually kind of got really in the weeds um and pulled out this very esoteric talking point about how he actually believes that the measure is not a progressive income tax, but that it actually is regressive and would tax low-income seniors and veterans.

And I was kind of sitting there, what are you talking about? And then I was like, oh, yeah, it was this.

I mean, this is a really weedy issue that I don't even want to get into right now to explain, but it has to do with the way the words were amended and edited in the Constitution to qualify.

And yeah, I mean, I was I was definitely caught off guard by that.

And to me, it was just kind of stunning to hear the Democratic governor of the state of Colorado essentially using talking points from Advance Colorado.

It was our first disclaimer that we had to put some text on the screen to kick people over to read more about it.

I think this thing about seniors and veterans with the tax increases, if they make enough to have a higher tax rate, I think.

Those people would have a higher tax rate, but there doesn't appear to be a provision that raises income taxes for low-income seniors and veterans.

And so we'll get into that way later with Chris Kennedy a little bit more.

But that really flared up, and we were both a little flat-footed because we weren't exactly sure what he was talking about.

And so we put the disclaimer and then pointed people to some resources.

So we handled that the best we could.

I think there were also other interesting things that came up, like I thought it was really interesting when the two of you started talking a little bit about the Colorado Competitiveness Council and that he's created, you know, to kind of push back against this narrative that Colorado is no longer competitive and to look into things the state can do to improve its standing.

And it was an interesting conversation from my perspective to listen to the two of you talk about paid family leave.

You know, he was sort of acknowledging that, like, the program is not exactly the program that he would have wanted and that he thinks there need to be, you know, some things done about potential fraud and the difficulty that employers have.

But it was also interesting to hear you point out that, you know, whereas I think the business community sees this as a burden and something that they really are having trouble doing, that on the other hand, hey, like, things like this actually are a plus for them.

for site selectors and people who are trying to attract businesses to the state of colorado