Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, running for governor of Colorado, took his Checker Marathon to the Golden Super Cruise over the weekend and laid out his energy vision for the state.

“So what we’re working on, the trunk is large enough, that we’re going to put in compressed natural gas,” he said. “It’s going to be our transition vehicle to the energy future of Colorado.”

He went on…

“I do like the notion of compressed natural gas because Colorado has the opportunity to be, really, the national leader in the use of natural gas. We’re going to convert a couple of our coal plants, making electricity, into natural gas. They’ll be cleaner, more efficient. We’re also looking at ways we can put – along I-70 and I-25 – compressed natural gas stations so that fleets of trucks, tractor-trailers, FedEx trucks, can all convert their fleets to compressed natural gas and know they’ll be able to get a, you know, to fill up when they need it.”

And what’s the effect of all that?

“And those are the kind of things, oh, and making sure that you insulate your buildings, making sure you have fuel-efficient vehicles. That’s how you begin to fight this battle against a) keeping your air cleaner b) sending less money to foreign dictatorships when you import all this oil and c) in terms of climate change, as we know more about climate change, using less energy, it’s just like buying insurance for your house. We’re making sure that we are lowering the risk that changes in climate will have a negative impact. “

The questions that need to be asked (and Hickenlooper needs to be answering) are how those outcomes (plant conversions, compressed natural-gas stations) would be achieved. Will the market drive those solutions? Or would it be by policy if Hickenlooper becomes governor? Or some combination?

Hickenlooper has previously spoken of combating climate change with “insurance.”

“I’m saying that clearly the climate is changing, clearly mankind’s activities are causing it,” he said at the Colorado Environmental Coalition gala in May 2009. “And that we’d be insane not to be spending tens…tens and tens of billions of dollars every year buying insurance to begin to prevent and stop that change that’s happening.”

I’m not clear if the “tens and tens of billions of dollars” refers to energy technology investments, government incentives or some other spending. Will Hickenlooper clarify that statement before the election Nov. 2?

When energy and environmental policy decisions are made in Colorado, a clear-eyed cost/benefit analysis should take priority. The Denver Post’s Vincent Carroll wrote a great piece about the cost overruns of Xcel’s SmartGridCity project in Boulder and whether the ratepayers will be on the hook.

Converting coal plants to natural gas (which Hickenlooper lauded in the video) is raising real concern on the Western Slope about potential job losses.

One of Big Labor’s big priorities is card check, which could make it easier for unions to organize a workplace by eliminating a secret ballot. Business alliances like the Coalition for Colorado Jobs are dead set against it.

“We’ve been urging members of our Congressional delegation for a number of years now to fight card check and EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) and…to fight the whole thing,” said Chuck Berry, president of the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, during a coalition event Sept. 2 in Denver. “We’ve not gotten firm commitments out of our senators, so we’re hoping that during this cycle, we could get them to at least resist the notion that this would be rammed through in a lame duck session – after the election but before the new Congress is sworn in, in January.”

One of those senators is U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who was asked about EFCA during a town hall later that day in Frisco.

“I think everybody that’s looking at this knows that that bill is not going to pass; it’s not going to come to the floor,” said Bennet. Asked if he would support it if it comes to a vote, Bennet said, “It won’t.”

Well, there you have it – sort of.

As WhoSaidYouSaid documented in July, Bennet is very squirrelly on the card check question.

“Which way on EFCA, senator?” editorialized The Denver Post 17 MONTHS AGO. Bennet, it seems, is no closer to taking a stand.

National Review Online published an interesting piece this morning, Big Labor’s Stealth Card-Check Strategy, that described their tactics, including Pres. Obama’s recess appointment of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.

Becker has “suggested that card-check legislation could be implemented administratively, without congressional authorization,” wrote Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee. “And from his new perch at the NLRB — an agency dominated by Big Labor–friendly appointees — Becker is in a position to do just that.”

Bennet supported Becker in committee and on the Senate floor. Coloradans deserve to know where Bennet stands on card check BEFORE the Nov. 2 election. A lame duck session would be way too late to discover how much wiggle room there is in Sen. Bennet’s answer, “It won’t.”

U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., could have Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee funding cut, given the Dems “brutal triage” facing expected losses in the midterm elections, The New York Times reported. Check out not only the political analysis at that link, but the photograph of Markey looking lost.

Mark Hillman, a Republican and a former majority leader of the Colorado state senate, notes on his blog that just as Markey, “was swept into office in a (2008) Democrat landslide when House Republicans were forced to cut their spending to former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave (R-Fort Morgan), it appears that now Congresswoman Markey is about to [be] a casualty of a looming Republican landslide.”

Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty likened the federal government to a drug dealer, exposing the coercion states face when dealing with spending tied to federal mandates, such as ObamaCare.

The “federal government’s acting increasingly like a financial drug dealer, handing out tastes, or free samples, trying to get people addicted, further addicted,” said Pawlenty on Fox News. “And we’ve just had it. We’re not taking the bait anymore, we’re not taking the free samples anymore. This is an executive order that says, we’re sending them a strong message, but we’re also going to try to make sure the policies are for Minnesota. Not because some big federal bureaucracy tells us what to do.”

This week, Pawlenty told state agencies “not to submit applications to any health care funding from the federal government related to the health care overhaul,” reported the Star Tribune.

Pawlenty’s move may be criticized by some as evidence of his 2012 presidential ambitions. Whatever his motivations, the encroachment of the debt-laden federal government on the states in the areas of entitlement spending is unsustainable.

“To the question of which level of government should choose the size and shape of entitlement programs, the clear answer is the states,” Jeffrey Miron, a Cato Institute fellow, wrote this summer in Politico. “Competition among them would generate better programs and limit the excesses of federal spending.”

U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, speaking to the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club on Sept. 1, 2010, questioned the judgment of U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., during his 19 months in office.

“I’m not the one that’s in Washington, D.C., folks, with a $13 trillion debt. I’m not the one that’s in D.C. with $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities,” said Buck. “That’s extreme in my book.”

“…And [Bennet] continues to vote in that direction, continues to rubber stamp the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda and then has the gall to come back to Colorado and say we’re getting nothing for our money...But why didn’t he know before he voted for the stimulus? Why didn’t he know before he voted for the health care bill?”

 

U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., speaking to The Denver Forum on Aug. 27, suggested that untaxed inherited wealth – beyond about $5 million – is not the American way.

“On the inheritance tax, my guess is that we’ll end up somewhere between a $3 [million] and $5 million floor, for that,” said Perlmutter. “If we don’t do something, it goes back to $600,000. Right now, I think it’s zero; but it goes back to $600,000. We’ll set a…For small businesses, whether it’s farms or small businesses – a person can pass up to $3 [million] to $5 million without an inheritance tax. After that, my guess is there will be a tax. Because I firmly believe that, you know, we’re not England. We’re not into landed gentry. You know, just because my grandfather did well doesn’t mean I’m entitled to a yacht. You know, and so that’s just a firmly-held value that I have, that we all make it in this country on our own, as best we can. And, you know, if you’ve got help from people, that’s great. But this is about doing it yourself.”

So, if your grandfather did well, then the government – instead of you – is entitled to the proverbial yacht? (By the way, Monday was my grandfather’s 80th birthday – Happy Birthday Granddad!)

Perlmutter is yet another politician who thinks that the government should redistribute wealth. (Remember the 2008 encounter of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama with Joe the Plumber? “…I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” said Obama.)

Now that Obama, Perlmutter and their Democratic majorities control government policy-making in Washington, we see what comes of their economic ideas and regulatory meddling: confusion in the markets, stubborn unemployment, and hundreds of billions of potential investment dollars parked on the sidelines.

By reinstating the death tax, as suggested by Perlmutter (and by others, like former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin), at least three things would happen. It would reduce the freedom of citizens to pass on and dedicate their money as THEY see fit (a freedom which strikes me as truly the American way). The government would have even more power and assets to spend as IT sees fit. Meanwhile, estate planners would find creative ways to shelter and protect the private property anyway.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s announcement Monday that, if elected governor of Colorado, he would abolish the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) was signaled long before it was “news.”

Check out this video of Hickenlooper from a July 4, 2010, event in Highlands Ranch.

We’ve “revolutionized our relationship with public schools, so we’ll get rid of CSAP,” he said.

In an interview with ColoradoBiz magazine, posted Aug. 1, Hickenlooper said, “Let’s get rid of CSAP.”

Just another reason to pay close attention to what politicians say outside of press conferences: they might tell you what they’re thinking.

Colorado state Rep. Sara Gagliardi, D-Arvada, at a town hall meeting a month ago, managed to avoid the phrase “tax increase” when asked about business tax exemptions removed by the Democratic-controlled state legislature earlier this year.

“Well, I did support [removing] the tax exemptions and the reason that I did support those is that we needed to balance the budget in the state of Colorado,” said Gagliardi at the event July 31. “And, in order to do that, and the research was done over the last three years looking at specific tax exemptions in our state where people were able to – and businesses were able to – not have to pay a tax, and so we changed it, and so I did support all of those. And I believe that was the right thing to do because we had to balance the budget.”

It reminds me a bit of our post from June, “Rep. Max Tyler’s verbal gymnastics on taxes.”

For a 2010 Legislative Report Card by the Jefferson County Business Lobby on Reps. Gagliardi, Tyler and other legislators, go here.

In my view, if a business or person has to pay more taxes than before, it qualifies as a tax increase.

So, the contest is open: send to whosaidyousaid@gmail.com the best euphemism for “tax increase” you’ve heard from a public official, in Colorado or elsewhere. Even better if the statement is on video.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., likes to talk, and talk, about the perils of the federal deficit and debt. And now his talk has caught up with him.

Bennet’s recent statement that “we have nothing to show” for our national debt (now past $13 trillion) is, one sense, unremarkable; he has said it before.

But it hit a nerve, particularly among conservatives, getting play in National Review Online, RedState.com, and in the latest ad from CrossRoads GPS (see video).

The reason is as simple as the headline on Vincent Carroll’s recent Denver Post column: Bennet not credible on deficit.

“If you’re partial to stern warnings about the growing national debt and grand schemes for shrinking it, Bennet is your man,” wrote Carroll. “But be sure to avert your eyes from his actual record. Pay no attention to the contrast between Bennet’s green-eye-shade rhetoric and his drunken-sailor votes.”

“It’s time for us to change America,” then-Sen. Barack Obama said on this date two years ago in Denver, accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States.

“Change happens – change happens because the American people demand it, because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time. America, this is one of those moments. I believe that, as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming, because I’ve seen it, because I’ve lived it.”

He was right, but not in the way he intended. The next day, Sarah Palin instantly became a national political figure as the running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Six months later, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli gave voice to the Tea Party movement. Today, Fox News host Glenn Beck held his “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

Palin, Santelli and Beck are points on a curve the arc of which is clear: citizens will regain control of their federal government and stop its reckless spending. Evidence of that will come Nov. 2 at the ballot box.

Mortimer Zuckerman, the chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, was once a big backer of Barack Obama who has come to his senses.

Zuckerman’s must-read column this week reflects the precarious moment the country faces. It’s titled, “The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government in U.S. History: current federal budget trends are capable of destroying this country.”

That simple, yet stunning, realization – taking hold in hearts and minds – is the change we’ve been waiting for.