The largest battle Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper will face in promoting his budget to the Joint Budget Committee, the state legislature as a whole, and to the public will come from the $375 million reduction in K-12 spending that comprises more than 65% of the total $570 million budget-cut projection total.

The question is what does Hickenlooper do if the entitlementistas in his own party don’t accept his budget plan? Will the pro-business governor hold his ground or fold?

It was to public sentiment that House Minority Leader Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, referred to in his comments to Hickenlooper on Tuesday. While Pace’s assertion of per-pupil funding levels in K-12 education is open to wide debate, the portion of the state’s general fund that is dedicated to funding is not in question. At just over 41 percent of the state’s general fund, and with the state facing a $1+ billion dollar shortfall, cutting the budget without touching K-12 education funding is, as the governor concluded, extremely difficult.

Just as he confronted Sen. Pat Steadman earlier in the hearing on the issue of state employees paying more into their own retirement, Pace was rebuffed by Hickenlooper in a way that made the Democratic governor look like a model of fiscal austerity, versus the whining entitlement sentimentality of his fellow Democratic party members.

Hickenlooper deflected calls from Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, and Rep. Pace for additional revenue through taxation – calling it a non-starter – and argued that a critical part of paying the bills for the future of K-12 education and all other government functions would be to foster a pro-business economic climate:

PACE: “Governor, as Sen. Heath touched on, we’re at the bottom of the pack in funding education already. By some estimates were 46th or 49th in K-12 expenditure on per pupil nationally. As a father, and I have two small kids who will soon be in the school system, I’m concerned about the decreased funding of K-12. And, at the very least, I think we as a state need to be aiming to be in the middle of the pack in funding. Funding alone isn’t going to fix our problems with schools, but there’s a certain level we have to fund in order to at least being doing a decent job.

“And, I want to ask you as governor, and someone who I know is committed to educating our kids and our future, what should we as legislators be telling constituents, what should we be telling voters, what should we be telling parents about the future of K-12 education? Where are we headed? Because in this proposal there is a very sizable cut to funding our school districts, but where are we going from here, what are the long-term plans? How do we guarantee to the people of Colorado that we are going to continue to invest in our kids and in our future?”

HICKENLOOPER: “I think we agree completely, as Sen. Heath said, there is no more important investment to be made than in our kids, and certainly making sure that they can get a successful education. No entrepreneur is going to want there business here, no one is going to want to build a company here if we don’t have a good education system.

“But we are in the middle of the worst recession in the country since the Great Depression. And it is affecting Colorado in ways we really are just beginning to fully understand. And obviously, 41 percent of the entire general fund budget is in education, and you have to make these size cuts, I’m not sure how you protect K-12 education. I just don’t . . . we could not find a way to do that.

“That being said, that is why we have stressed as we have for the last 10 months on the campaign and, literally, every day since then, that we have to figure out- again, it’s Colorado, we’re going to hold ourselves to the highest standards in protecting our land and waters, the highest ethical standards-but we have to be more pro-business.

“The only way we’re going to be able to guarantee that such a thing exists, to guarantee we’ll have the resources to give our kids great educations is to help our businesses sell more products, and hire more employees, help them to expand. That’s the single, absolute . . . Some people are going to argue we should be increasing taxes, some people say we should be increasing fees. In the end, the people of Colorado will decide that. My experience of touring around, up and down the Front Range and all across the state was that, in this economy, there is not a will of people to increase taxes. So, if that is true, and that’s my observation, and polls confirm that, I think that we have to be more pro-business”.

In unveiling his 2011 state budget proposal at the Capitol on Tuesday, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper called for an additional $570 million in cuts. He is also asking public employees to increase their contribution to their retirement plan, the Public Employees’ Retirement Association (PERA), from 2.5 percent to 4.5 percent.

This drew immediate criticism from Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, who defended state workers and the “sacrifice” they are making to balance the budget. Hickenlooper responded that, unlike public employees who may see a small percentage decrease in take-home salary (due to the transfer to paying directly into their retirement fund), private sector employees may not even have a job at all and would gladly accept such a tradeoff:

STEADMAN: “I don’t know that going two-percent deeper into their pockets is the right place to look for balancing our budget this year. And while I agree with you that it isn’t prudent to not have a healthy reserve and to not look at that reserve – the closest thing to a rainy day fund that we have – I don’t know that we can ask state employees to further sacrifice some of their salary so that we can have a healthy reserve going into next year. That’s a difficult tradeoff, and I don’t know what the final answer will be, but I foresee great difficulties there. And in several other pieces of what you brought to us, bills that have already been defeated this legislative session . . . So I’m very glad you’ve taken this step and engaged in this process, but I don’t know that there’s an easy way out of the mess we’re in, and I look forward to working with you.”

HICKENLOOPER: “Certainly, I’m acutely aware of the challenges that our workforce has faced…took a cut, we’re proposing another cut…there is no workforce that wants to face that, ever. I’ve been in the private sector, had dozens of restaurants we were in, buildings that we have renovated and built, and yet, there are people all over the state, and not a small number, that have no job. And they are . . . you go to talk to a number of architects, marketing specialists, journalists, media specialists, and ask whether they’d rather have their job back and take a 4.5 percent pay cut from what they had two years ago, or where they are now, and there is an almost limitless list that would much rather have that job, even at a diminished salary. That being said, this is a plan, and we look forward to trying to work with you to find appropriate balances.”

Steadman has no doubt heard from state employees like Caleb Cameron who say that any additional retirement payments are, in effect, pay cuts. “Just because I’m a state employee doesn’t mean I should be fixing the budget for everybody else,” Cameron told Fox 31′s Eli Stokols in January.

With a $1 billion-plus shortfall, however, cuts must be made to balance the budget. In Hickenlooper’s reply to Steadman, he argued that those cuts could very well include public employees who must face tradeoffs – tradeoffs that in some instances private sector workers don’t have the option of making.

“Reinvest in Colorado” was supposed to be the message at a rally organized by labor unions, including the Colorado AFL-CIO, earlier this week, but it soon became clear that House Minority Leader Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, had more provocative intentions, eager to pump up the crowd on the steps of the Capitol.

As the Colorado News Agency reported, while Pace offered a bipartisan fig leaf in his opening statement, driving a pro-union agenda was at the heart of his message:

“I’m going to work as hard as I can to work across the aisle but we can’t let the other side have their agenda, which is about making the rich richer, fighting for the corporations…. it’s not about the middle class.”

Pace continued the theme, saying that his side of the aisle would be strong advocates for fostering a stronger middle class.

“We have a choice in this country. We’re either going to turn into a Third World country where the rich are gonna get richer or we’re going to go back to being the strong country that we were 50 years ago when we had a huge middle class,” said Pace.

Pace then followed with the statement showcased in the clip above, courtesy of 850KOA:

“I’m willing to put my fist where I need to put it. I’m willing to fight. I’m willing to get in and rumble to make sure that we’re fighting for good jobs.”

The inflammatory rhetoric earned mixed reviews, even from some of those in attendance who agreed with Pace’s message overall, as Lynn Bartels relays in the Denver Post Spot blog:

Melissa McCollister, 28, of Denver, an organizer for UFCW Local 7, said Pace’s speech was a “a little abrasive.”

“But sometimes you need to be tough. You need to call it like it is,” she said.

Recognizing that his comments would probably not play well to a larger audience, Pace told Bartels, “I went a little overboard on the rhetoric.”

As my colleague, Kelly Maher, wrote just a little over a week ago, the Pueblo Democrat is “setting the Pace for partisanship in Colorado” – while paying lip service to working across the aisle in calling for the continuation of a “civility pledge,” according to another piece by Bartels.

Pace’s pugilist posturing to his union allies about using his “fist” and being “willing to fight” – “to get in and rumble” – certainly makes the proposed resolution ring all the more hollow.

Except for a “couple of neighborhoods” in Boulder, “there’s no appetite for taxes anywhere, all over the state,” joked Gov. John Hickenlooper, as he made his introductory points in the last stop of a four-day, eight city tour of Colorado.

While Hickenlooper’s whirlwind Bottom-Up Economic Development Tour came to a close Monday in Loveland, he repeated a fierce pro-business message, balanced against regulations, until those regulations becomes “red tape”:

“All of our legislature can tell you they – we have our work cut out for us in terms of just balancing the budget. There’s no extra money anywhere. Pretty much everything is pretty significantly funded, and yet there’s no appetite for taxes anywhere, all over the state. Well, maybe a couple neighborhoods in Boulder. Just a joke. Turn that camera off.”

Those in attendance, of course, laughed heartily at Hickenlooper’s assertion, but the laughter may have obscured the larger point, and one that the Democrat would turn quite quickly towards – namely the necessity for additional revenue from a source other than taxation, in order to provide “resources” for the government (to spend on transportation, health care, higher education).

In other words, while the “appetite” may not be present for more taxation, actually cutting spending from a state budget that has doubled from $9.63 billion in 1998 to $19.17 billion in 2010 does not appear to be all that palatable either to the new governor. As he continued, Hickenlooper suggested that many in attendance and elsewhere across the state during his tour wanted to see a comprehensive menu of government services continue to be funded:

“But it’s true there is no appetite to raise taxes and if you recognize that you don’t have any hidden pool of money and you want more resources for your kids or for your transportation, for your health care system, right? If you want to put more money into higher ed, then the only solution you have is to figure out, ‘How we can be more pro-business’? How can we help stimulate our small businesses, our medium businesses, our large businesses – how can we be more pro-business and, this being Colorado, that means we’ve got to hold ourselves at the highest level of accountability, in terms of making sure that we don’t compromise our environmental standards, our ethical standards, right?

“How can we be more pro-business to make sure that we do everything we can to help the businesses that are here in Colorado to expand and succeed and hire more people? But, at the same time, make sure that we don’t, in any way, compromise all those natural wonders – the incredible landscapes – that attracted so many people here in the first place, and that we want to leave to our kids and to their grandkids in at least as good condition as it is today, if not better.

“And that’s a real balancing act, right? I think in all 64 counties to have a discussion about where is that boundary between appropriate regulation – we all know that we need some regulation – and when it gets to become red tape. And it’s not just government; every large enterprise has an impulse, an inclination, towards red tape.

“It’s easy to talk about, but it’s going to be difficult, and we’re going to need your help, to try and find out, ‘Where is that boundary?”

Part of finding that boundary, Hickenlooper has already indicated, could come from his proposal to include “regulatory impact statements” along with every piece of legislation, in addition to the traditional fiscal note that is normally attached.

Measuring the cost to business of the “red tape” regulations that are proposed most frequently as a way of enforcing those uncompromising “environmental standards” would present one small piece–should it be adopted–of delineating that red-tape boundary that Hickenlooper has verbally attacked in the week since his inauguration, but that members of his own party seem so keen to enforce.

By offering only a vision to increase revenue – or “resources,” according to Hickenlooper – the discussion of whether or not government should be undertaking the provision of the services necessitating the additional funding in the first place has, unfortunately, been omitted.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s inauguration Tuesday featured an intense focus on jobs, with the announcement of three executive orders designed to reaffirm the Democrat’s bona fides as a pro-business executive (a trait he touted back in July in the campaign video above), a dimension called into question recently with the appointment of union-friendly Ellen Golombek to the Department of Labor and Employment.

State Bill Colorado has the full text of all three executive orders mentioned by the newly minted governor.

The bulk of Hickenlooper’s address was devoted to such “kitchen table” issues, peppered intermittently with themes urging Coloradans to work together, the importance of education (necessary for the economy to recover), and, of course, beer (the entrepreneurial spirit of Colorado).

From Hickenlooper’s prepared comments, posted at 9NEWS, a glimpse of economic as well as political benchmarks:

Our first task, our highest priority, is jobs.

We will help businesses protect and expand the jobs we have, we will attract new jobs, and we will embrace the entrepreneurial spirit that exists throughout Colorado.

Today, I will sign several Executive Orders. The first order requires state government to join in partnership with local communities in creating jobs and designing economic development plans that are uniquely suited to these communities. This effort, focusing on the use of local talent and resources, is an initiative for all 64 counties – from Dolores to Douglas, from Mineral to Morgan … and all the places in between. We will chart a course for economic revival from the bottom up, county by county. On Friday, I will embark on a four-day trip around the state to begin this process.

Our second Executive Order places a new emphasis on global opportunities as an engine for job creation. Business is about relationships. This order will create the Governor’s Trade and Tourism Ambassador Program. We intend to enlist Colorado-related businesses and individuals living in other states and countries who have a stake in Colorado. These volunteer ambassadors will spread the word about Colorado, brand us as a state that welcomes innovation and new investment, and help us spur international tourism and export opportunities.

A third Executive Order begins the task of making the State a more effective partner with our counties. It provides for more flexibility and less bureaucracy; more freedom with fewer mandates. It also sends a message to the private sector that we mean to cut red tape, make licenses and regulations more rational and easier to understand, and that we mean to do it as a partner with local communities.

By taking specific actions today, we want the people of Colorado to know that we heard you and we share your urgency to get Colorado back to work. We also heard you want a leaner and less partisan government. We recruited people for our Cabinet, independent of political backgrounds, who will put our state first and bring the commitment needed to meet our fiscal challenges. We chose them because they share our values of competence, integrity and compassion.

Their job will be to help us shrink government while still being effective and efficient. They have not been asked – nor will they be expected – to provide a partisan perspective. Their work will define Colorado as a beacon of good government, where innovation and customer service is part of the daily exercise of every state employee. As business is attracted to excellence, this emphasis on good government must be a cornerstone of our economic revival.

Good government also means careful budget planning (and trimming), something Hickenlooper acknowledged, saying, “As a kid we learned that you don’t spend what you don’t have; you don’t use up your savings on things you may want but don’t need.”

There are many “wants” in government, and Hickenlooper will face a chorus of “want” groups over his four-year term.

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Even with the continued economic downturn, given the current political environment, minimizing partisanship will prove to be just as challenging a task for the new governor as it will be to grow a struggling economy.

A few money quotes from the recent “Strike a Better Balance” rally on the Colorado statehouse steps…

$$$ “We must storm that ballot box and we must unshackle our legislators so they can provide the funding our schools deserve.” – Karen Mortimer, PTSA president, Whittier Elementary School

$$$ “Employment should be protected in every sector, including public workers.” – Sammantha O’Brien, Metro State College student

$$$ “A quality education is at least as important as low taxes, if not more so.” – O’Brien

What goes along with such thinking is, of course, are NEW SCHEMES such as House Bill 1263, with 18 Democratic legislators signing on.

“This bill will limit the amount corporations deduct from their taxes for salaries they pay in excess of $250,000 a year,” explained Carol Hedges of the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute. “Now, be clear, it doesn’t limit what corporations can pay. But it does limit how much the cost of that excessive pay they can transfer to us as taxpayers.”

“I’m not going to answer that question,” said Gov. Bill Ritter.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J69-W2Q_g_w]

I love it at the end of this clip how he says, “We’ve really been focused on creating jobs to bring us out of this,” and yet can’t say how many jobs will actually be created in this “creative cluster”.

P.S. “Creative cluster” is a really fun phrase, try saying it 10 times fast.

“With it (Ref. C) Colorado has a true and honest balanced budget. We have a stable and secure financial position.”

This was in 2006. Seriously? Stable? Secure?

“And, we have predictable and stable budgeting.” Man alive lady, maybe it’s time for you to go get your crystal ball to the shop.

What a freaky video. This “scientist” describes reducing population as the “master variable” in climate change. What a totally creepy and Orwellian thing to say. This dude should hang out with Dick Lamm.

I’d also be interested to see what his idea of a better economy would be. If the “madness must end” of an economy based on growth and more and more, I want him to volunteer to be first and give up all his money and stuff (he can give it to me).