Ref C Wins!

I was quite relieved to see that the voters of Colorado had enough sense to ignore the lies of John Caldara, Douglas Bruce, Joe Stengel, and Grover Norquist when they voted yesterday to approve Referendum C by a narrow margin.

If the voters had rejected C, the legislature would have been forced to cut $365 million from Colorado’s next budget. Here is the list of discretionary budget areas where cuts would have been made:

• The $640 million Discretionary Medicaid Budget that funds medical services, nursing homes and prescriptions for the poor, elderly, pregnant women, and the disabled.
• The $597 million Higher Education Budget that funds community colleges and State universities.
• The $533 million Corrections Budget that funds prisons for convicted felons.
• The $500 million Human Services Budget which funds child welfare, mental health care, and basic services for the disabled.
• The $236 million Judicial System Budget.
• The $82 million Department of Revenue Budget that funds the Motor Vehicle Dept. and collects taxes.
• The $79 million General Government Budget that funds the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Senate and House of Representatives.
• The $59 million Public Safety/State Patrol Budget.
• The $22 million State Parks Budget.
• The $4 million Military & Veterans Affairs Budget.

Our own state representative, Ted Harvey, showed his typical leadership by opposing Referendum C. Of course, Harvey was once employed by Caldara's Independence Institute, which shows just how low even he can sink. We should also remember that Harvey was on the opposite side of Highlands Ranch voters on every ballot issue last November, too, so he remains just as out of touch as ever.