by Penn Pfiffner and Barry Poulson
This legislative session Colorado HB1250 was introduced to begin addressing an unfunded billion-dollar liability in the Public Employee Retirement Association’s (PERA) retiree health care benefit program. Its own sponsor then killed the bill after it came under a fire storm of hysteria-tinged and false criticisms, fueled by one-sided media coverage.
Colorado [...]

by Harris Kenny
Solar panel-maker Solyndra has been in the headlines because it received $528 million worth of taxpayer-backed federal loans and then went bankrupt. But Denver residents don’t need to look at failed Solyndra to see the trouble that government loans can bring. Sadly, there are some prime examples closer to home.
Last month, The Denver [...]

by Barry Poulson
In November, Colorado citizens will vote on Prop 103 to increase taxes and earmark the revenue for education K-12. Prop 103 increases the personal income tax, the corporate income tax, and the statewide sales and use tax for the years 2012 through 2016.
The Fiscal Impact Statement prepared by the Colorado [...]

by Barry Poulson
In the November election, Washington citizens approved Initiative I-1053 by a more than 64 percent margin, requiring that “Legislative actions raising taxes must be approved by two thirds legislative majorities or receive voter approval.”
In other words, Washingtonians have elected to reign in their legislature’s ability to further tax them through a simple majority [...]

by Barry Fagin
As a long-time, hard-working federal employee who gives up a lot to work where he does, I have just one thing to say about the proposed federal employee pay freeze. I think it’s a terrific idea.
Well, maybe not exactly terrific, particularly if you think about how little difference it would actually make. But [...]

By Barry W. Poulson, Ph.D.
Colorado taxpayers are on the hook for more than $1 billion in unfunded liabilities incurred in the defined benefit retiree health plan administered by the Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA). An additional $79 million in unfunded liabilities was incurred in 2008, reflecting both a rapid growth in retiree benefits and losses [...]

By Barry Poulson
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recently signed on to “Take Root Denver,” a new affordable housing campaign sponsored by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, a “government sponsored enterprise” more commonly known as Freddie Mac. Hickenlooper touts this as a new program to assist residents with calling Denver “home sweet home.”
But the federal mandate [...]

By Barry Fagin
“Hypocrite! You’re always writing about how government needs to be smaller. But you work for a government institution! Why don’t you write about that?”
I get e-mails like this from time to time, I assume from someone who hasn’t read a lot of my columns and instead just typed my name into a search [...]

By Barry W. Poulson
In a May 12 Denver Post editorial, “Reforming Wall Street is Essential,” President Barack Obama makes the case for Senator Chris Dodd’s financial reform bill (what the president calls “Wall Street reforms”). The president argues that the financial crisis was caused by irresponsible practices on Wall Street, that the Dodd bill will [...]

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution provides: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Over the first century of our nation’s history the 10th Amendment was an important part of the Constitutional rules constraining the growth of the federal government.