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Governor keeps focus on jobs and budget

Rocky Mountain News

Published January 9, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

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The words "higher education" never passed the lips of Gov. Bill Ritter during his State of the State address Thursday. In fact, the only time he mentioned colleges was in the context of legislation to help high-school students take college courses.

Uh oh. Any college president can guess what Ritter's silence means: trouble ahead.

Ritter presumably failed to discuss higher ed because there is no point in offering false assurances when it is almost certain that colleges and universities will be among the biggest losers when the state budget is balanced during a severe recession.

It's going to be that kind of legislative year. A sober and maybe even somber one. And the State of the State reflected that reality. It was reasonably short, to the point and limited to fewer topics than usual.

"Over the next 120 days," Ritter said, "our collective focus must be on protecting businesses, creating jobs, and managing the budget. I will look at everything we work on this session through the lens of the economy - of what's responsible now and what's best for the long run."

We certainly hope that's the case - even if we're not entirely sure what "protecting businesses" means.

The centerpiece of Ritter's economic development plans seems to be a job-creation tax credit. But he also continued to extol investments in his New Energy Economy, which he mentioned 11 times and which he claimed - extravagantly - is already fulfilling its promise of creating "a new economic future for all of America."

Maybe he should wait until the economic recovery before riding too far on that rhetoric.

The governor also pledged that "everything will be on the table" in the search for potential savings (the italics appeared in the official text). What he actually meant was that everything that can be on the table will be, since a good deal of the budget is off-limits, thanks to constitutional provisions and federal requirements.

Ritter did refer to this unfortunate fact, although with some odd finger-pointing. To hearty applause, he singled out the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights as a culprit in the budgeting mess, touting the opportunity to "address TABOR and the constitutional and statutory straitjackets that makes modern, sensible and value-based budgeting an impossibility."

One of the constitutional straitjackets the governor was too polite to mention, but which deserves higher billing than TABOR at the moment, is Amendment 23, which puts K-12 education funding on automatic pilot. If anything is going to make sensible budgeting impossible in the next few crucial months, it's that amendment.

Exactly how does TABOR prevent sensible budgeting in the current downturn? It's not as if the state is being forced to return desperately needed money to taxpayers in refund checks. There's no TABOR surplus to refund. The only serious constraint that TABOR imposes on lawmakers today is that they can't hike taxes without voter consent. When the economy improves, TABOR's spending limits will indeed kick in again, but they're not an issue now.

Barely two months ago, voters rejected an amendment that would have lifted TABOR's spending limits and the constitutional mandate for ever-escalating K-12 funding. Maybe that idea should be tweaked and returned to the ballot in two years, but in the meantime state leaders must play the hand they've been dealt. And as Ritter's speech made clear, it's not exactly a full house.

Comments

  • January 9, 2009

    4:20 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jrhino writes:

    lets be sure those jobs go to American Citizens. The legislature needs to get tough on illegal alien employers and the govenor needs to clean house at the top of all his departments.

  • January 9, 2009

    6:41 a.m.

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    VVVV writes:

    Oh no!!! The 6.4% of the state budget associated with K-12 education is such a horrible burden. It has nothing on the 14.9% spent on prisons and judges, or the 800 lb gorilla - the 31.7% of the budget spent on Human services and health care. Let's blame that pittifully small amount of the budget because we can't bother to spend the time to fix health care or can't abide people killing themselves with drugs. Higher education will be pummeled becuase the politicians still don't want to earn their keep and do something difficult and challenging. It's easiest to rob them becuase the tuition can just keep going up to cover the loss. Plus there is no public outcry when the prisoners have perks taken away to sell us into the next tax hike. I have yet to find that gold laying goose of a job that is equivalent to the pay for imcompetence ratio of a politician. I guess that's why they have to buy the job with their own money. Everyone wants to be able to whine and nap for cash.

  • January 9, 2009

    7:08 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    JFE writes:

    Lets get our facts straight! The General Fund budget for K-12 is 41.4% of the General Fund, not 6.4%.

  • January 9, 2009

    10 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    bxwatso writes:

    I thought Ref. C, which increased taxes by $6bln, was supposed to fix the budget problem.

    Did the Democrats just spend all the extra money on new programs that we now can't afford? Oh my, I am terribly surprised by that.

    Please, Colorado, don't repeal TABOR, it is not to blame for this mess. Indeed, if we hadn't suspended parts of TABOR, this mess would be a lot less bad.

  • January 9, 2009

    2:55 p.m.

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    Slimjim_800 writes:

    Well I guess we'll have to send all our high school grads to Wyoming for a year so they can get in-state tuition there. It's not that bad an idea as long as they end up coming back to Colorado.

  • January 9, 2009

    5:08 p.m.

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    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    Over the next 120 days," Ritter said, "our collective focus must be on protecting businesses,

    Killing the oil industry is Ritter's idea of protecting businesses. What a sham running this state. I think I'll go get drunk.

  • January 10, 2009

    6:38 a.m.

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    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    Hopi, I'll join you.

  • January 10, 2009

    1:49 p.m.

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    pslwd writes:

    Yes, it is too bad there is not a national TABOR. This free wheeling spending would be gone. TABOR is the best thing about this state's economy.

  • January 10, 2009

    7:56 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:

    Stop funding higher ed and let them adjust prices as they see fit. Currently the legislator is trying to run the higher ed business by price fixing among other out of touch mandates.

    23 will be expiring soon. Why bother changing anything.

    Tabor is a blessing from God.

  • January 22, 2009

    12:39 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    tateman writes:

    It seems Ritter is just out of his league and show return to law where he doesn't hae to make an decision that will hurt us. We need a business professional running for office in 2010. I hope we don't see any old faces and someone new comes in to run. we need a change badly. $700 million defict that is embarassing