If you’ve driven on Colorado’s highways, you know one simple fact: our roads are in bad shape. Now the Reason Foundation (the smart guys at a think tank in Washington, DC) has confirmed what we all know.
So, why are our roads so bad you may ask? This is not that complicated of an issue. The Colorado Legislature has refused to fund roads for decades. Yes, there has been money, and no the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) has not been the problem. The Democrats want to get rid of TABOR and have made repealing TABOR a requirement to fund roads.
Just take a recent snapshot of the Colorado State Budget under TABOR for an example. From 2013 to 2019, the overall state budget has gone from about 21 billion dollars to about 30 billion dollars. That is a YUGE increase (over 30%), but yet, no road funding.
Where does the money go? Obamacare and the expansion of Medicaid (Medicaid is healthcare for the poor and not really poor) now consume the fastest-growing part of the budget. Following that, education eats up about 43% of the budget. But there is still plenty of money for roads. Instead, the money gets “nickel and dimed” into every legislator’s pet projects.
Every year the legislature fails to fund roads, they become more expensive to fix and expand.
Another reason we haven’t put the money into roads is Colorado really doesn’t like to get federal funding. Now we’re conservatives, but we send a lot of our tax dollars to Washington, D.C. We would like more of it back for projects if they forcibly take our taxes.
Maybe it is time to recover some of what’s left from our stolen wallets. Our Federal Delegation (4 of the 9 are Republicans), needs to do a better job of coordinating with local entities to get funding for projects. If all of the Californians are moving here, we should get all their road funding.
Of course, once the government gets the money – it seems that the government has a hard time building something on time and under budget.
Let’s just say the government is the problem.
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