Printed on 7/27/08
The government bureaucracy grew and liberty loving citizens have been left to pay the bills.
In bold defiance of the state constitution the legislature passed, and the governor signed, a school finance bill that fundamentally changed how property taxes are assessed. This will amount to an estimated 1.7 billion dollar tax increase over the next ten years and that may grow as the first year's impact was recently reassessed from an original estimate of $66 million to $114 million. In addition, despite their claims that these dollars are to fund education, in reality it simply shifts the educational costs to local property owners and gives the legislature that much more money to spend on other programs.
There were about fifty bills that added up to over $32,000,000 in new fees and fee increases every year on the people and businesses of Colorado.
Our government abandoned any policy of encouraging strong and wholesome families and embraced a radical agenda of anti-family values. The family was re-defined in Colorado statute to be any two or more people living together, regardless of any relationship by blood, marriage or adoption. Concerning adoption, any two people can now adopt the same child. This new law flies in the face of the people rejecting domestic partnerships in last year's election and it even goes further than the domestic partnership proposal did concerning adoption. The requirement that the parents be married to each other, or, for that matter, have any relationship to each other at all was eliminated. Another big shift away from traditional values is the new law that forces employers, including many religious organizations, from taking into account "sexual orientation" when making any hiring decisions. The legislature also banned school districts from teaching abstinence-only sex education courses.
Parental authority and school choice were diminished as well. Charter schools took the biggest hits, with capitol construction funding cuts and attacks on the power of the state-wide chartering authority. The compulsory school age was expanded downward to include six-year-olds, and more teeth were put into an immunization tracking system that is designed to monitor all children in the state.
Several new professions were put under higher regulation, including landscape architects, athletic trainers, "debt settlement services," powersports dealers and several other professions.
Renewable energy was a priority this year. I applaud the attention given to this vital key for our nation's future prosperity, but all we saw passed were mandates and subsidies. Anything that encouraged free market solutions was killed in committee. At the same time the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission was radically restructured, putting the traditional energy industry under tighter control. In addition to restructuring the membership of the Commission, the statutory mission of the Oil and Gas Commission was significantly changed. The words "encourage and promote" the development of oil and gas was stripped from the law and a mission of essentially command and control was put in its place.
This was also the pattern for second amendment issues. Conceal carry laws were put under stricter control. In 2003 the legislature passed a law that required all state held personal information of citizens who were issued conceal carry permits be eliminated by July 1, 2007. This year the legislature went back on that commitment and made this personal information a permanent part of their statewide database.
Life and liberty are the ideals upon which our nation was founded"the essence of a free people. This year the Colorado Legislature has taken us in quite the opposite direction.
Rep. Kevin Lundberg
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2007 Legislative Session Summary
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Life, Liberty and the 2007 Legislature
In this past legislative session the people were denied their constitutional right to vote on a tax increase and that tax increase amounted to the second largest in Colorado's history. We also saw an historic expansion of regulations and fees. School choice and parental authority were diminished. Traditional family values were abandoned and in the face of our nation's critical need for energy independence tighter controls were slapped on the energy industry.The government bureaucracy grew and liberty loving citizens have been left to pay the bills.
In bold defiance of the state constitution the legislature passed, and the governor signed, a school finance bill that fundamentally changed how property taxes are assessed. This will amount to an estimated 1.7 billion dollar tax increase over the next ten years and that may grow as the first year's impact was recently reassessed from an original estimate of $66 million to $114 million. In addition, despite their claims that these dollars are to fund education, in reality it simply shifts the educational costs to local property owners and gives the legislature that much more money to spend on other programs.
There were about fifty bills that added up to over $32,000,000 in new fees and fee increases every year on the people and businesses of Colorado.
Our government abandoned any policy of encouraging strong and wholesome families and embraced a radical agenda of anti-family values. The family was re-defined in Colorado statute to be any two or more people living together, regardless of any relationship by blood, marriage or adoption. Concerning adoption, any two people can now adopt the same child. This new law flies in the face of the people rejecting domestic partnerships in last year's election and it even goes further than the domestic partnership proposal did concerning adoption. The requirement that the parents be married to each other, or, for that matter, have any relationship to each other at all was eliminated. Another big shift away from traditional values is the new law that forces employers, including many religious organizations, from taking into account "sexual orientation" when making any hiring decisions. The legislature also banned school districts from teaching abstinence-only sex education courses.
Parental authority and school choice were diminished as well. Charter schools took the biggest hits, with capitol construction funding cuts and attacks on the power of the state-wide chartering authority. The compulsory school age was expanded downward to include six-year-olds, and more teeth were put into an immunization tracking system that is designed to monitor all children in the state.
Several new professions were put under higher regulation, including landscape architects, athletic trainers, "debt settlement services," powersports dealers and several other professions.
Renewable energy was a priority this year. I applaud the attention given to this vital key for our nation's future prosperity, but all we saw passed were mandates and subsidies. Anything that encouraged free market solutions was killed in committee. At the same time the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission was radically restructured, putting the traditional energy industry under tighter control. In addition to restructuring the membership of the Commission, the statutory mission of the Oil and Gas Commission was significantly changed. The words "encourage and promote" the development of oil and gas was stripped from the law and a mission of essentially command and control was put in its place.
This was also the pattern for second amendment issues. Conceal carry laws were put under stricter control. In 2003 the legislature passed a law that required all state held personal information of citizens who were issued conceal carry permits be eliminated by July 1, 2007. This year the legislature went back on that commitment and made this personal information a permanent part of their statewide database.
Life and liberty are the ideals upon which our nation was founded"the essence of a free people. This year the Colorado Legislature has taken us in quite the opposite direction.
Rep. Kevin Lundberg
< Back to HEARTH Fund Page Directory
