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CARROLL: Roads to ruin?

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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'Colorado's two most pressing needs are in transportation and energy infrastructure," Gov. Bill Ritter said at a National Governors Association meeting in Philadelphia this week. Which explains why his tax proposal this fall was designed to pay for them, right? Actually, no. Those were college scholarships he wanted to fund with a hike in the severance tax, not the state's "most pressing needs."

Ritter has never asked Coloradans whether they want to spend more on transportation and energy infrastructure. But he's perfectly willing to offload the tab to the nation's taxpayers - in the name of economic stimulus, of course. He and most of his colleagues in the governors association are pressing president-elect Barack Obama for $136 billion for highway and public works projects that the chairman of the governors, Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania, claims are "ready to go."

Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, House Democrats are talking about a potentially much larger package for the states - every dollar of which will amount to new debt that will have to be paid off by younger workers and kids who haven't even entered the labor market yet.

To be sure, the federal debt may be devalued somewhat along the way if the government's profligate stimulus policies spur a bout of damaging inflation.

"You can't allow the financial system to collapse," economist Tucker Hart Adams told The Denver Post the other day. Still, she said, "I'm concerned they're creating huge problems down the line . . . The potential for inflation is enormous."

Margaret Thatcher once called inflation "the unseen robber of those who have saved." It would debase the retirement accounts of thrifty Americans just as surely as the recent stock market crash.

But hey, we've got pressing needs to fund, so let's not quibble over the long-term consequences of our public-works wish lists. Your kids won't mind paying higher taxes, will they? And you, of course, won't mind working into your 80s.

Those pesky facts

Remember the outrage surrounding last year's decision by the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Affairs to present the Newmont Mining chairman with an award? Why, activists and a number of professors were livid.

Associate professor Tom Rowe got so worked up in writing a diatribe against Newmont for The Denver Post that he referred to allegations involving the company's activities in Indonesia without bothering to mention that Newmont and its local executive had been acquitted of all charges in an Indonesian court. Nor did he mention that some of the claims had been exposed as hoaxes.

That legal case, by the way, was bumped up to Indonesia's supreme court, so the company is not out of the woods yet despite a strong array of studies and facts on its side. Indeed, it would be particularly ironic if Newmont found itself back in the dock after a recent report by The Jakarta Post concerning residents of Buyat Bay, the site of lurid claims involving the health effects of a nearby Newmont mine.

The article tells how Buyat residents felt manipulated by anti-corporate activists, who persuaded many to relocate to another community. These people are now returning to Buyat Bay, even though in some cases they had "burned their homes, after being lured by the promise from activists that they would be provided with fully furnished homes in Duminanga."

But here's the most damning sentence in the Jakarta Post article: "The Buyat residents said they were even required by the [rights groups] to claim they had contracted various illnesses from tailings dumped by gold mining company PT Newmont Minahasa Raya into the bay area."

These residents are by no means the first protagonists in Newmont's Buyat Bay saga to retract their claims, although whether that country's high court takes notice remains to be seen. We can be sure, though, that the Newmont haters on our campuses will be unmoved by the revelation - as facts have never enjoyed a prominent role in their thesis.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

Comments

  • December 3, 2008

    1:48 a.m.

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    drat writes:

    Sadly Newmont would rather spend money providing data and reports that prove residents concerns are unfounded when the monies could be spent improving their mines operations world wide, why they insist on this bloody minded attitude I will never know!!! How their ethical investors manage to overlook these facts also dumbfounds me...

  • December 3, 2008

    5:17 a.m.

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    roger44 writes:

    So Ritter wants to have the state college grads driving down gravel roads. They will be driving to other states for jobs, nice of him. The auto industry is a good example of running a company like the Government runs their business is a way to ruin.

  • December 3, 2008

    6:33 a.m.

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    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    roger44 - transportation includes roads. Besides, going to college in Colorado doesn't mean they have to stay after they finish. The auto industry's problem is bad management and unions. Let them sink.

  • December 3, 2008

    7:20 a.m.

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    VVVV writes:

    With so many good intentions, who needs enemies?

    Ritter and the rest will be dead by the time the bills come due, so who are they to care? Japan has been driven to ruin, such that 6 day work weeks with 10-12 hour days are considered lazy, and couples can barely afford to raise one child, much less buy a house, all for one giant generation that continues to hold the power and demand all the spoils of that power, while becoming senile and bitter. As the boomers get older and older, they will use thier power (since though there is a minimum age limit in congress, there is no maximum, regardless of competence to serve) to not only destroy the future, but wring every last ounce of weath from the present, due to their "entitlement complex".

    Throw in the luxurious spoils of their kumbaya attitudes, and their bar nothing methods of stamping out industries on nothing more than personal bias and general distaste for the industrial complex (that makes the world go round) and they just might succeed in creating the first world wide dark age, or at least (with the promise of India and China) just send our country back to the third world.

  • December 3, 2008

    7:47 a.m.

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    TC writes:

    South Carolina Govenor Mark Sanford was on the News Hour last night with Ritter. Sanford spoke the plain truth. Fed bailout of the states isn't a good idea. Ritter is sure that we can't make it without a fedral bail-out. Where exactly does he think the Feds get their money?

  • December 3, 2008

    8:05 a.m.

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    DougH writes:

    Hard to imagine there is all of this concern and hyper-ventilating over some proposed public works projects. The federal debt has ballooned to over $ 10 trillion and just now Vince is starting to fret over passing debt onto our children and starting inflation .

    It seems odd that after throwing away billions of dollars in Iraq, giving massive tax breaks to corporations and now funding the free market screw ups in the financial markets, Vince is just now worrying about building a few highways and patching up the long neglected infrastructure of this country.

    I wish his concern for our well being would have surfaced earlier

  • December 3, 2008

    9:26 a.m.

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    SlouchingTowardBoulder writes:

    I'm laying my marker down right now for 2012 - The GOP ticket will be South Carolina Govenor Mark Sanford and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

  • December 3, 2008

    10:34 a.m.

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    Darwin writes:

    DougH, guess you haven't read Vince's columns before. This certainly is not the first time he "fretted over passing debt onto our children and starting inflation". It doesn't seem to be a good idea to point out past "mistakes" to justify continuing with making more mistakes. This madness of spending, bailouts, etc. should stop somewhere, but it won't. The government is convinced it can spend its way to prosperity. The real losers will be future generations and those who saved for "a rainy day".

  • December 3, 2008

    10:54 a.m.

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    DougH writes:

    Darwin, yes I have read Vince's work for some time and he doesn't seem to mind a tax cut that is just as disruptive to the deficit as overspending is. And I agree to continue the problem is not a good choice either, but It seems that Vince was trashing the Governor a little too much. Was Ritter supposed to go to the Conference and say that here in Colorado we have Tabor that tells us how much we can spend, so we don't want any of your stinking federal money.
    What would the guys at the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry say? You know they would be all over his back screaming and hollering about Colorado getting it's share.

    So, I think Vince was taking a cheap whack at the governor, while he was just trying to do what is best for Colorado

  • December 3, 2008

    11:24 a.m.

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    socrates writes:

    Vince - two points: one - we get 90 cents back for every dollar we send to the federal government while other states have been fighting for (and receiving) more than their share (and Owens was doing... um... something). Is it a problem for a Colorado Governor to advocate for his state and its citizens?

    second - Amendment 58 did put money into energy infrastructure and highway infrastructure. Those were two other components (besides the scholarships - which addresses another need, workforce) of the amendment you may have missed.

  • December 3, 2008

    4:55 p.m.

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    Cwillyrun1 writes:

    Tabor isn't the problem for transportation in Colorado. Ritter cut the budget for transportation in his latest budget. I imagine it won't be long before many of the roadside rest areas supported by CDOT will close, like the one between here and Colorado Springs. Or pull offs for truckers to chain up won't be maintained. Don't be surprised if toll roads are added onto existing highways, like the idea of tolling I-70 before Eisenhower. Bringing up a tax increase that would EXPLICITLY go to infrastructure, while not cutting out more from transportation in the budget, hasn't been brought up by Ritter. Ritter's an ineffective Governor.

    socrates, before Owens the rate of return was even lower. Over the years, it's increased but Colorado has always paid out more than what the state's received in return.

  • December 3, 2008

    5:06 p.m.

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    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    Mike_in_Hartsel--
    You mean...I can leave?

  • December 3, 2008

    5:11 p.m.

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    adamggardner writes:

    Tabor revenue limitations exclude federal dollars. The state can keep and spend whatever the feds send us, regardless of TABOR. DougH - Sounds like you need to check your facts before posting a defense of the indefensible. It is hardly a "cheap whack" to point out Ritter's blatant hypocrisy.

  • December 3, 2008

    8:23 p.m.

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    DougH writes:

    Adamg- Oh Please, It is not blatant hypocrisy for the governor to participate in whatever federal funding is available. So, Vince did not like the way it was worded. Who cares ? His attack on the Governor was a cheap shot at someone just trying to do their job for the best interests of the state.

    The TABOR referance in my comment was for effect and to make a point. Sorry that it was not technically correct, that was not the purpose.. But, if federal money receipts are not covered by Tabor, then why shouldn't the governor go after all that is available ?

  • December 4, 2008

    3:08 p.m.

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    Cwillyrun1 writes:

    Doug, Ritter has been ineffective at working for the state's best interest. While you feel Vince took a cheap shot at Ritter, I see it as Vince telling the truth about Ritter's work for Colorado citizens. It's hypocritical to push off transportation from budget projections, saying there's not enough money, but then go to the federal government asking them for support in place of that.