Hi, darling, Hey gorgeous. How are you.
I am doing just fine. I heard this sound bite this morning and I was like, you know, I wonder how John Caldera, whose Independence Institute spent gobs and gobs of money lowering the income rate in our state, feels about hearing the governor say we cut income taxes three times.
The beautiful thing about being a politician is you can always find a defense for we. My guess is he did vote for it, and we Coloradden's did vote to lower the state's income tax twice now from four point sixty three now to only four point four percent.
Right, So I guess we did, didn't we?
You know, kind of like on Saturday when the Broncos beat the bills, I'm gonna.
Be like, we why we we?
Why? Right? One?
We beat the bills?
That's right. So now, in all the seriousness, you guys did.
Spend gobs and gobs of money. You should send him a bill.
John, Well, our supporters and our friends and other great organizations helped us with this, and let's talk about what he did and didn't do real quickly. What he didn't do was object and campaign against the tax cuts. I'll take that as a victory. What he did do was take credit for those victories after we did it. I'll take that too. I would love a politician who proudly says we cut taxes in hopes that he will do it again.
What he also did went the other way. He signed onto a bill that makes it near impossible for me to put another tax cut on the ballot. He passed a.
Bill and it says that if there's a tax cut, there has to be this language on the ballot to scare the voters.
It says, well, you vote for this.
Tax cut, it will stript money away from education, healthcare, and roads right, and puppies and little ladies will die, kids will be starving. And when we've tried to petition this, we've seen that petition signers will go, ohh, I don't want that, even when it was a lie, because we had these surpluses and no part of.
The budget was going to get cut when we tried to do this.
So I don't know how the governor could say he loves lower taxes and then vote for bill, sign a bill to make it impossible for us to do it, and for him to take credit against that. He also mentioned three times, and I'll give him partial credit for this. He signed on to a bill that temporarily lowered our income tax rate as part of a Tabor refund mechanism, which no longer applies.
So there was a temporary little tax. I'll take it.
You know, what we need to do is lower the income tax rate. What what matters is not that politicians take credit for things they don't do.
What else is new?
What is important is that this legislature is going to try to ruin Tabor and raise taxes yet again.
John, we have to keep on on that.
Let me ask you about this because I just saw this. The new messaging coming from Colorado Democrats seems to be, Hey, you know what, we love Tabor too. We love Tabor refunds. But what we you know, we want to what we want to do is we just want to take the rest of that refund. We're gonna still give you guys the right to vote on a tax increase, which you and I both know is worth nothing because now they just keep making everything fees right, so it doesn't matter, right.
So there, now they've changed the messaging. We want to keep the part where you get to vote on higher taxes. We just want to take the table refunds to make sure that we have enough money for kids and puppies.
Part of TABOR is a tax and spend limitation on the state.
Now they've already figured out how to legally get around that. Yell what is it called.
I know it's been adjudicated, right, I know that the courts have heard it. But you know as well as I do. A tax is a fee by another name. A fee is a tax by another name.
There's no difference in wallet cannot tell the difference between a tax and a fee.
But there is something different here. There's a nuance here.
So let me see if I can grab it, because I think it goes right down to the fundamentals of democracy and the idea that democracy is under assault.
Yes it is.
So when you take something and call it a fee, what it does is it pulls it out of the state what's called general fund and puts it into another bucket. And that other bucket is not controlled by our legislature. It is controlled by appointed people in different districts. So when TABOR passed nineteen ninety two, less than a third of all the money that was spent by the state was in that other bucket that was run by non
elected people. They have grown that bucket so large that out all the money that is spent by the state, that bucket that is run by other people is now two thirds of all.
The money we saw. We say, let me say it differently.
The people who are running around screaming democracy is under assault have moved most of the government, two thirds of the government outside of elected control, our direct elected officials, and now put it into the hands of appointed, unaccountable people who we cannot vote out of office. They're appointed, and so we don't have direct control.
We don't even have.
A say in two thirds of our government in Colorado, as they scream, no kings, no kings, well yes, I agree with you.
No kings.
Put that money back into the general fund and let us vote if we want to increase the size of the budget. No.
No, they did that so that they didn't have to give the money back.
Yeah, exactly. Okay, I got to stop you there. We have two and a half minutes, and you do tend to go on. So let me ask you this question.
Oh you, but you are fascinated by everything, I say, Well, okay, so you have men man'splain this a little more for you, honey.
You have a column on Complete Colorado dot com about this legislative session, and you know I have said I said it yesterday on the show. From this point forward, everything Jared Police does is about his eventual run for president, right, I mean, that's what it is. So what are you hoping? You know, the labor bill is going to come back. There's there's some really onerous crap that is going to
come through this legislature. Do you have any sort of you know, guess about I really be more diligent about.
I've known Jared for over a quarter of a century and it's been painful and hard to watch him do all these things that he does not really agree with. He's not personally anti gun, but he's ushered in the worst gun control laws in the nation.
He is not pro tax but he has ripped apart taxes. He's done special interests.
He has just outlawing AI basically and putting in regulations.
This is not him.
But he can't stand up to the left, to the wild progressives. Well, she's got nothing to lose, it says the last time at bat Man Up, Jared, be yourself. We might actually like you stand up to the progressives. They hate your guts now anyway. I mean, it's amazing how they talked about the governor. Now they're ready for him to go, and they're planning for when he's gone, what's gonna happen.
So you're not loved by anyone.
He is the Rodney danger Field of Colorado, which is really empowering in a way.
So you can be yourself.
If everybody hates you, no matter what you do, go do the right thing or go be you. And so I'm hopeful that this session we might get a look into what Jared really is. Last thought, if Jared had a Republican legislature, he probably would have been one of the best governors in the country. He would keep the legislature from doing foolish socially conservative stuff, but on business friendly stuff he'd probably agree.
It would have been wonderful.
And there's a civil war brewing inside the Democratic ranks and it could explode this session, and that being between normal Democrats and socialists, and they're really starting to go at it.
I hope.
So from your lips to God's heer, Sean John Caldera, he is the for some god forsaken reason they let him be in charge at the Independence Institute.
It's worth Oh by the way, Yeah, I loved your Last Man show.
You mean on the Independence Institute's YouTube channel, John, Is that what you're talking about.
I didn't know that. I mean IV three, No, I did not know it was on that station. Actually, it's a kick to watch you and Deborah Floor go uh talk about different things. It's been a lot of fun. All right, my friend, I'll talk to you soon.