So Michael, I was just doing it, just a little rough path here, and ninety three billion dollars they pushed out the door, right, So there's roughly one hundred and forty four million taxpayers.
In the US.
That comes up to about six hundred and forty five dollars per taxpayer just for that ninety three billion dollars.
I'm pissed off. No, you're a selfish bastard. You went the six hundred and forty five dollars in your own pocket, so you can go waste it on something that's totally useless as opposed to whatever.
Wonderful program they're going to put together.
It totally useless, like eggs, Yeah, eggs.
Or a diet coke or you sounded like he was driving. He's out there polluting the air right now, probably driving some damn you know, internal combustion engine and polluting the air ways and causing me to have my allergies this morning.
Good grief.
Sometimes you call in here thinking you're so damn smart, and you just irritate me. Denver right, headline, Now, where did it go?
I'll get the wrong tab open headline.
Denver's two hundred and fifty million dollar budget hole will force major cuts, furloughs, freezes, and likely layoffs. The Denver mayor broke the news to city workers yesterday morning. A fifty million dollar deficit for this year, a two hundred million dollar deficit for twenty twenty six.
So they're going to slash spending.
Slash that's that's their word, not mine, by more than twelve percent, more than during the pandemic when it was cut nearly ten percent. Now the employees are apparently pissed off because they're going to face furloughs this year, including layoffs, the reduction or elimination of programs, and the consolidation of departments.
Now, listen, listen to that.
Everything, everything, including layoffs, the reduction, elimination of programs, and the consolidation of departments, is on the table in twenty twenty six, he said.
In fact, he says the.
City will undergo a massive restructuring with emphasis on making government smaller, faster, and easier. The hiring freezes started today, meaning yesterday. Furloughs begin June one. But but now remember everything's on the table. Then you get down about five paragraphs later and you have this short little paragraph. Johnston says, he plans to continue spending on homelessness resolution, an investment
in downtown and the city. And remember everything was on the table, and despite slashing government, Johnson plans to invest in catalytic projects, catalytic, converter projects, catalytic. Those big projects include downtown reinvestment, the expanse of downtown reinvestment. Oh my gosh, you mean like bus lanes of the middle of Cofax.
You mean like bike lanes on Broadway. No, he's talking about, Well, maybe that is downtown reinvestment, the expansion of the National Western Center, and then contributing to a stadium for the National Women's Soccer League, and a debt package he helped voters support in November. So I thought I'd do a little digging. I like to dig, and let's just find out.
For example, let's talk about homelessness first. The homeless population in Denver, based on the most recent data from twenty twenty four point in time, was nine thousand, nine hundred seventy seven. But that's across the entire seven county metro area that includes Adams, Rapo, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and
Jefferson counties. Now nine hundred and seventy seven across that seven county metro area, but specifically in the city and County of Denver, the number is six thousand, five hundred and thirty nine. Now, we've had program after program after program, so I thought, I wonder what the change has been in homelessness over the past ten years. So in twenty fourteen, the point in time count recorded eight thousand and forty two, though that number was probably underreported because of bad weather
and they had few volunteers. Now, remember the current number is nine thousand, nine hundred seventy seven. Because I'm doing apples to apples here, so I'm talking about the metro area. So the last twenty four point in time count was nine hundred and seventy seven. In twenty fourteen it was eight thousand and forty two. Eight thousand, forty two, I think is less than the current nine thousand, nine hundred
almost ten thousand. Twenty fifteen, the data is less comprehensive, but it was estimated to be between sixty one hundred and ten thousand. Denver counted for nearly half of that. So again we're about ten thousand the same numbers today twenty fifteen. So in ten years of spending money, we have maintained the same amount of homelessness. Twenty sixteen, the point in time count about sixty one hundred. Wait a minute, that's the current number in Denver specifically today. So we've
and that's just not changed at all. And in fact, the point in time count for twenty sixteen showed a fifty eight percent increase in homelessness since the year noted by twenty twenty three. Twenty seventeen, homelessness was at a ten year high with about fivey one hundred and sixteen.
Now, wait a minute.
In twenty seventeen, that was fivey one hundred and sixteen was a ten year high. But the point in time for twenty twenty four was ninety nine hundred, almost ten thousand, almost double. So I guess we've reached record numbers, but they don't want to call it record numbers. Twenty eighteen, I say, let's speed up here a little bit. Let's get to twenty twenty three. The count jumped to nine thousand and sixty five, the thirty one point seven increase
from the year before. Twenty twenty two, but that does not count Venezuelan immigrants. Why not the federal report estimated ten thousand and fifty four, and that put Denver fifth nationally for homeless population size. So we have a fifty million dollar budget hole this year, a two hundred million dollar budget hole next year. Everything's on the table, but
we're still going to spend money on homelessness. So not everything is on the table, and we keep spending more and more money on homelessness, and the numbers increase, they increase. The point twenty twenty four, the point in time count reached a record high of nine hundred and seventy seven. Can I just say ten thousand, which is up ten percent from last year? Overall growth, the homeless population in metro Denver has grown significantly. There's been a sixty three
percent spike between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four. So I wanted to look at a decade now. It's fluctuated, but it shows a clear upward trend line, particularly post twenty twenty, and the trend line shows a forty four percent increase between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty three. So everything's on the table except homelessness. So the one thing that does not seem to have any impact on homelessness, that's off the table.
He's still going to do that. Now. There is some good news in the homelessness.
The number of veterans decreased by sixteen percent, but that's probably because they had a program called it was a targeted intervention program called Built for Zero. So for at least for our vets considering that Memorial Day is coming up, at least for our veterans who are still alive, we at least did something for them. So everything's on the table except that. Oh and immigration. Remember remember the story said Johnson says he plans to continue spending on homelessness
resolution as an investment in downtown in the city. But it seems to me that the more you spend on homelessness, huh, the more homeless you get. So that's the investment you went for downtown Denver. Way to go, Mayor. I'm telling you what, you're one brilliant son of a bitch. I'll tell you what you've got the brains of just you know what. Wow, you know you should run for governor. That's what you should do. As long as we're going down in the crap hole, I think you could. You
could probably flush the toy pretty damn well. Now the other thing that now, remember, everything's on the table except homelessness. And everything's on the table except oh, immigration, the immigration crisis, as the Denverright calls it. Now they say, in twenty twenty three, the city spent seventy three million dollars on both homelessness and immigration. Then the following year, according to Denver Right, Denver spent eighty six point six million, and
in the following year seventy six point two million. Now again they say that's on both. So I thought, you know, Michael, why don't you go do some DIGGI let's see what we can find out about homelessness. Now Denver I says it's like seventy one million dollars. Based on available data, the total taxpayer money spent on services for illegal aliens in Denver since December of twenty twenty two, three years ago,
is estimated at three hundred and fifty six million dollars. Now, if you take an average of seventy million per year, that only gets you to two hundred and ten million. And the data that I find shows it's estimated at three hundred and fifty six million dollars. Now, a significant
portion of that is attributed to last year. Now that includes spending by the city, schools and the healthcare systems, which of course are all you know, it's the Denver Public schools, it's Denver General Health, it's the city and county and Denver All that's reported by the Common Sense Institute. Now, precise costs for twenty twenty four a loan are not fully isolated in their sources. But here's what I found out.
When you do total cumulative spending. Cumulative spending again between December of twenty two and November twenty four, three hundred and fifty six million dollars. That's about seven nine hundred dollars per illegal alien for the estimated forty five thousand who have arrived in Denver since twenty twenty two. That's eight percent of your budget, roughly eight percent. So I don't know, it seems to me. I bet you, I'm
just a dummy. If you wanted to start cutting your budget deficit, you wanted to reduce it, you might go to the one thing that you shouldn't be paid for anyway, which are illegal aliens, which represents a three hundred and fifty six million.
Dollars dollar amount and cut it out now.
In January of last year, Johnson projected the cost could reach one hundred and eighty million dollars for the year of twenty twenty four if the pace of arrivals continued, though actual spending may have been lower because of reduced arrivals down to less than a dozen per day by November of last year. But the city itself has spent between seventy one and one hundred million dollars directly on illegal alien support programs through mid twenty twenty four. Then,
and I found this phrase interesting. The additional costs were borne by the schools and the healthcare systems. Well, wait a minute, in Denver, the city county. I know you have a Denver school where, but it's the Denver publics, the Denver School System, and Denver General Health the healthcare systems. Again,
the taxpayers and Denver end up paying for it. So you had education, health care, shelter and housing, case management, work, transportation, other costs like food, childcare, administrative costs, and then you had some one time capital costs. So what do you think those were? Now, Remember we're trying to fill a budget hole. Education between ninety eight to two hundred and twenty two million dollars.
Here are the details.
Those costs cover education for about sixteen thousand illegal alien students enrolled in seventeen Denver Metro school districts since December twenty two. Now the range reflects uncertain the obviously reporting costs across the districts because I don't know that there's an equal reporting system. But that equates equates to almost two percent of Colorado's K through twelve education budget for
the year twenty twenty five. Almost half of all the illegal aliens in the school system in the metro area are from Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Now, the Common Sense Institute, again a source for a lot of this information, reports that two hundred and fifty six million of the three hundred and fifty six million total spent was on education. So the one thing that we should be focused on spending for our citizens, it's a damn lot of money going to illegal aliens.
Do I remember everything's on the table?
Don't forget Denveright and the mayor say everything's on the table. What about healthcare? There's between fifty and one hundred and twenty million dollars in uncompensated care. That's emergency departments. They provided about forty eight million dollars in encompassated care, which averaged to about almost three thousand dollars per illegal alien.
The higher estimate of about one hundred and twenty million dollars includes broader health care cross costs across the metro hospitals because well, obviously illegal aliens probably don't have insurance. Denver Health, the taxpayer funded safety net system, has reported significant strains from unpaid medical visits. Now under under federal law,
you can't turn them away, legal or illegal. Somebody shows up in a hospital with a GSW, you're not going to ask, you know, you're going to treat the gunshot wound first. You're not going to ask, you know, even at that point, you don't even ask about insurance, let
alone your citizenship. You're just going to treat it. But if you give you some context, the forty nine million dollar figure that cited about from emergency departments has part of the total three hundred and fifty plus million total indicates that are ongoing healthcare costs in twenty twenty four. But I can't find any specific number for twenty twenty four. So that's the healthcare cost. What about shelter and housing costs? Between forty two and seventy one million dollars, that's cumulative
through mid of last year. Now, had Denver spent a lot of money on temporary housing, the hotels, the shelters.
Rent assistance.
By December of twenty three, Denver had spent thirty eight million dollars. By midpoint last year, it was estimated to be seventy one million dollars HM for for estimates for midpoint last year were seventy one million. And we have a fifty million dollar hole this year, which fifty million is less than seventy one million dollars. Had you not been spending that on homeless, you would have had oh you could have covered your budget deficit.
They spent.
Just doing casework almost ten million dollars. Let's see, I had a note here about where is it about work authorization?
Oh?
Here it is. By midpoint last year, Denver had helped sixteen hundred illegal aliens with work authorization. They had a ninety seven success rate. And Denver also helps them support their asylum claims. So taxpayers are also funding that now I know it's only you know, what was it almost ten million dollars, But when you're trying to fill a fifty million dollar hole for this year and a two hundred million dollar hole for next year, ten million dollars
goes quite away in doing that. Transportation six million dollars, that's what's allocated in twenty twenty four. That's for like free bus tickets, not just to move around Denver, but even to relocate to other places.
Food costs.
I can't quite quantify that, but it peers around seventy one million dollars on other support programs, which I think would include probably food.
For illegal aliens.
It seems like in the short.
Segment, I've almost filled your budget hole.
The Common Sense Institute reported that Mayor Johnston spent three hundred and fifty six million dollars on immigrants. Maybe the mayor's name should be changed to Mayor dim Wick.
Mayor no common sense? How about that?
Now this isn't exactly having things to do with Denver, but nonetheless I just find it superfluous and stupid. Where'd you get this?
Dragon? Where'd this come from? About the walkway?
There would be a nine news one thing I believe.
This is nine news.
The headline is Governor Polus Veil's design for Colorado's His History Pedestrian Walkway. He's unveiled the renderings for the Colorado one fifty Pedestrian Walkway as a way to celebrate Colorado's one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. A It will connect people to Lincoln Veterans Park and commemorates Colorado's art, culture, and history for the states one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. The eleven thousand square foot walkway will enhance connectivity you mean,
I get a better signal on my cell phone. Yeah, of course, Okay, all right, and improve accessibility among downtown Denver's public spaces and monuments. The project that's expected to be completed in the summer of twenty twenty six. Now, well, let me tell you about the design first, because this is really important for what I believe this is going to turn into, you know, it's going to turn into
I think it's gonna turn into. The design will be reflective of Colorado's diverse topography, meaning you're gonna it's gonna be what hilly or it's gonna like, you know, have a you know, a forty five foot in forty five degree incline.
Potholes, potholes.
That's what's gonna a.
Touche, mister Redbeard. Potholes.
And of course, when I tell you what I think it's going to turn into, it'll be like driving on the twenty five or the seventy during rush hour when there's been a wreck, or somebody has pulled over and has their flashers on, or a cop stops somebody you know, is investigating a wreck, and so everybody's trying to pull over and slow down. So it's gonna go nowhere. And this is what this walkway is going to turn into. It will pay tribute to Colorado's geology by featuring regional
material like sandstone, marble granite. It will naturally wine from the Colorado State Capitals of Lincoln Veterans Park and will include features like a viewing platform or platforms, sculptural monuments, commissioned artwork you know like lucifer uh play elements, and different learning and storytelling opportunities for everybody.
I know you're you're.
I'm in awe back here. Oh I thought you were orgasmic. I thought you were getting close to you know, I was like, you know, the walkway was designed by Studio Gang Studio, Studio Studio Trope, Mundus, Bishop Olin and Thornton Thomassetti.
There's a rendering of it. And then let's see is this statement from Polis.
Of course it is. I'm thrilled. He has a thrill up his leg.
That Coloradins can now visualize this walkway and it's amazing positive impact on our community. Now when Coloradines of all ages come to visit our state capital, they can more easily access and enjoy Lincoln Veterans Park while enjoying and learning from art from local artists.
Are curious, is that a thing to people go, hey, I need to go tourists out of state people, maybe even you know, from from up north to down south?
Does it?
They say, hey, I need to visit the capitol.
Yes, they think to themselves. I want to go to the sixteenth Street. I want to I want to go to Union Station. I want to see if I can dodge some muggings. I want to see if I can get stuck on Colefax, you know, behind a bus somewhere. I want to see if I can get killed crossing the street Colefax and then I want to go downtown and just visit the homeless, you know, pick up a few.
You know, maybe you do.
Insulin injections, or like me, you do testosterone injections, so I need see needles.
But mostly serious here to do.
People come to other states and go I need to visit the capitolilty.
I mean, I get it.
Maybe possibly because it's the gold Dome, not Trump's gold Dome, but Denver's Golden Dome.
If I'm if I'm in a capital city, uh huh. And I've done this year's because I've been to all of them. But if I'm in a capital city for business or work, or or I'm just driving through, I might drive by and look at it.
I mean, because it's I don't necessarily get out and go in.
You know, my dad's in Salt Lake City and they've got the Copper Dome, which is green, so it's it's kind of interesting to drive by and see that and go, oh, look at that.
But I don't know, did you.
Ever go look at the tabernacle? Yes? Okay, yeah, so yo.
But I don't think people first think when they let's take a vacation to Colorado and the kids.
Go yeah, can we go to the state Capitol.
Is that other thing?
I don't think that's the thing dragging all right. I don't think it is.
Uh.
It's an interactive, active experience.
It will showcase Colorado's history and look to our even stronger future. I want to thanks Studio Gang for their work on this design, as well as all the local artists.
Blah blah blah. Now.
According to the to the press release, it will serve as a new gateway to downtown Denver and is a major part of the ongoing initiatives to revitalize the Civic Center area. The initiatives include renovations to the Library, Denver Art Museum, upgrades the recently open Populous Hotel, the Future fifty two to eighty Trail, the Mcnichol's Building Museum, and improvements to the Greek Theater in the Central Promenade in Civic Central Park.
I have a theory about this dragon. Do you want to guess? I don't want it's going to be a magnet. I don't want to venture into what the heck is in your mind.
Is, Oh, it's it's going to be a magnet, all right, and it's going to be an attraction it's gonna damn ye, damn straight. It's going to be a magnet and attraction for criminals and homeless.
No, that's no, no, not a thing.
Talk about a great campground. You know you're homeless. You can see the mountains you'd like, you'd prefer to be up there, and you can't. But according to the press release, it's going to represent Colorado's topography. So just take your tent and pitch it on a fourteen or on the new historic pedestrian The Colorado won fifty pedestrian walkway.
And you can see that. To the renderings of that. Michael says, go here dot com.
Normally I want people to go, well, actually I do want you to go. I want you to go look at this, yeah abomination. Then I want you to think about the costs. What do you think it costs? Guess what I could not find out. I can find out everything about how much we spent on homelessness, everything about it and the breakdown and for illegal aliens, on education hospital. Somebody asked me about incarceration. I can't find any figures
on incarceration costs, primarily because well they never asked. Do you think that the Denver do you do you you know, with all due respect to the goober that asked me that question, do you honestly believe that a Denver cop, upon arresting somebody is going to say, hey, maybe see your papers please. Of course they're not, because they probably get fired for doing it. So we don't have any numbers about that. So I started digging around seeing if
I could find something. Now it's here's what I found. It's described as this eleven thousand square foot public private partnership and there is the key eleven thousand square feet. So as I say it's going to be a magnet, it's going to be in a traction. It involves the Governor's office, the P three office at the Colorado Department
of Personality, Administration and History Colorado. Completion data is expected by summer of twenty twenty six, and then no specific cost figures for the walkway itself are provided because it's part of a broader state initiative that includes significant transportation and infrastructure funding. So here's a little context. Sea DOT has allocated billions for infrastructure.
To do.
What what are you gonna do with that bill? With those billions of dollars that the Sea Dot allocation includes forty two million dollars in grants for thirty seven transportation projects for.
Twenty twenty three.
Now I'm confused because this is Check's calendar twenty twenty five. Now, I know there's a lot of construction going around, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of construction that we ought to be doing, you know, like widening, fixing, potholes, fixing, you know, the conversions from concrete asphalt.
You know where you have those anyway.
But there is no direct allocation that I can find anywhere for the Colorado one to fifty walkway, So there's no explicit cost data. Now, I think it's reasonable to infer that, even though this is a public private partnership, that taxpayers are going to bear a portion of the expense through state budgets or a grant. You know, maybe they'll try to not do anything directly through the state, so they'll give a grant to some of these people they are going to be doing the construction, doing the
design work and all of that. They'll get a grant. So they goes, oh, well, you know what, No, taxpayers didn't pay for it. Oh, yes, they did the gigs, the cost to taxpayers for the Colorado one fifty pedestrian walkway is not publicly specified in any available source that I could.
Find, And you really got to go to Michael says, go here dot com and check out these renderings because it the walkway path snakes through the park up and over to Lincoln to the Capitol Building. So in order for you to go from the park to the Capitol Building, you've got to snake through the park on this walkway up and over Lincoln to the Capitol Building rather than just you know, cross the street.
And if you're describing that, Redbeard is using hand gestures, he's making the little curvy motions, and then he's kind of doing up and down motions like a roller coaster. Yeah, and I'm thinking every single one of those is a not in but it's a it's a divergence, or it's a it's a point by which if you're homeless or you're a criminal and you're looking for you know, subjects for your criminality. Uh, that seems to be a perfect place to do.
There are four or more switchbacks on this on this walkway path, and it is elevated, so underneath sure you're protected from the leble.
I didn't even think about the underneath par of course.
Yeah, so what we'll do is we'll just take more cops and well, it's just another crime infested.
It's just it's.
Somebody had mentioned in the text messages about bird feeders and how you know you feed up. You know, it attracts more birds and more birds, and it attracts squirrels and squirrels. This is what I mean by an attraction. The Governor's Walkway. Can't you imagine the Colorado one to fifty walkway? Mommy, daddy, Can we go to Denver so we can get a walk way so we can see the homeless people in the crime Can we go?
Can we go pick up needles? Can we Yeah? Kids, let's go.
Oh all those new areas perfect for graffiti.
Yeah.
Now, the top the walkway itself above has railings on it. But again you can still put graffiti on the railings too. But the more I looked at the aerial view, the more I'm ap to mark my words, it's an attraction for homeless people and criminals. And then I thought to myself as I looked at the aerial view, oh, I just parked. I've got a meeting at the Capitol. I
got to be there in five minutes. Do I want to walk down, say, from you know, Broadway on cole Fax over to Lincoln on along Coal Fax, you know, make a straight line and then walk into the Capitol. Or do I want to wake you know, meandering around all over the place trying to dodge the homeless. Or let's say it really did turn into a tourist attraction, and I want to get from point A to point B. It's like when you go when you go to Washington, d C. And all the tourists are there for the
cherry blossoms, and they're all on the escalators. Maybe nobody knows, you know, to stand right and walk left. Nobody nobody does. Drives me nuts. Drives me nuts. It gonna be the same thing. The penny is going away and Dragon and I had a man We had a knockdown, drag out argument about this yesterday.
We were trying to figure out he screamed.
At me, he was rude to me.
He was just all through punches. Yeah, good thing. We don't have an.
HR, I know.
Really, so the pennies going away stop being minded next year. According to a directee, from the president. But it doesn't mean that the pennies are going to disappear from circulation. There's no current mandate that I can find requiring the banks to remove pennies from circulation if they receive a penny during.
A transaction, so they'll still give them out. So they'll still give them out. Now.
In countries like Canada, they eliminated the penny in twenty twenty thirteen, pennies remained legal tender, but then were gradually withdrawn because businesses and banks returned them to the mint for recycling. And that might be what they do here. But how long would it take to remove all pennies from circulation. They're about one hundred and fourteen billion pennies in circulation, about one point one point one four million dollars.
It would depend on how aggressively the government makes you withdraw it. If pennies were to remain legal tender, they will only gradually disappear as they get hoarded, lost, or return to the banks, and then if the banks are required to return them to the mint to be melted down. So one economist that I found that talked about at Aja Patel, says that could be decades into the future
because of the slow reabsorption into the banking system. Canada's experience indicated that even a decade after halting penny production, pennies were still being used, although.
Their availability started to be diminished.
So who knows.
Any other little factoids, but there's a bunch more. But I think you'd rather have touched by every these shots now. I don't know, maybe it wouldn't pennies or bullets