Lawmakers admit the problem: One-time money built permanent government

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Reporters talk about shared reality, some want it to be their reality.

Over and over I have heard and read journalists discussing our “shared reality”–the need to operate from a basis of fact.

I don’t disagree.

The problem is that many of those same journalists want to substitute their take on reality, they want to be the arbiters of fact.

This is not their role.

I wrote an op ed on this dynamic using some statements and “reporting” by 9News’ Zelinger and Clark as an example.

More on the topic in the link below.

https://completecolorado.com/2026/01/08/colorado-journalists-shared-reality-deciders/

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Were it not for TABOR (weakened as it is) …

I wanted to share the Sun article below, but perhaps not for the usual reasons.

If you read it you’ll note what I and many others around the state have been harping on for some time now. The state has been living beyond its means.

Quoting the subhead of the article and then another bit further down (with link left intact):

“Nonpartisan staffers told lawmakers this month that the way they spent billions of dollars in one-time federal funds given to Colorado during the COVID pandemic contributed to the state’s budget shortfall.”

“Here’s the key line from the [legislative staff] report on how the legislature spent one-time federal funds during the pandemic: ‘If all one-time revenue had been spent on one-time activities and the state had otherwise managed to keep spending commitments within available revenue, ongoing general fund revenue and spending should have come back into alignment. It did not.’”

Yep.

Besides the acknowledgement by legislative staffers that the Democrats (with some Republican help) overspent…

—despite the media bias in the article where progressive reporter Jesse Aaron Paul wraps the hammer in velvet before bringing it down on the Democrats…

—despite progressive Paul bringing in the usual progressive talking points on TABOR…**

—what I want you to note about the article is how our state’s politicians gleefully overspent and seem to show little regret, forget about remorse. Screenshots 1 and 2 attached show some quotes from the article to illustrate.

If you read them do you have any doubt in your mind as to whether, given the same situation in the future, these folks would do differently?

Is there any doubt in your mind that, absent any restraint from things like TABOR or our Colorado-Constitutional mandate for a balanced budget that they would resist putting our state in hock to make their pet projects a reality?

This ought to highlight the importance of TABOR. Why do you think the Sun’s Paul keeps mentioning it? It does what he and other progressives (politicians and journos alike) don’t want. It puts the brakes on a politician’s natural desire to NOT limit their spending. To take from your family to give to others they feel deserve it more.

At about the same time I saw this article, I saw the Independence Institute report which I link to second below.

I added analyst Nash Herman’s report to give you yet more evidence of what I mention above. You’ll note in it just how far lawmakers (of both parties) have gone in this state to get around the limits voters have asked for. How neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays those in our legislature from taking more of your money or making the government bigger so as to require more of your money to sustain itself.

Screenshot 3 from the report shows how our state government (on a per-capita, inflation-adjusted basis) has gotten bigger and bigger.

Screenshot 4, also from the report, shows how revenues from fees has ballooned in this state, starting largely in 2008/2009 with another big jump in 2018/2019.

Screenshot 5 gives us another metric on the expansion of government: it shows how the growth of government employment in this state has vastly outpaced the growth of private development. It’s worth pausing to note, too, that these government workers are now mostly unionized.

Whatever the expansion may be, be it one-time money to grow government or to continue funding things which ought to have been cut or be it clever labeling of takings to skirt TABOR, the end point is the same.

It ends in more money out of your wallet. It means less money for your family, your children.

Speak up for TABOR. Speak up for it among friends, among family, and speak up for it in the legislature and at the ballot box. Without it, our state would be in even worse shape and it would be yet more expensive to live here.

**E.g. the following quote copied with link intact: “While there is no single cause of the deficit — TABOR certainly limits how much lawmakers have to spend and the cost of Medicaid has far outpaced how fast the budget has been allowed to increase — a report generated by JBC staff lends credence to Republicans’ argument, albeit with caveats. It also spreads the blame to decisions made by both parties.”

Funny, and maybe it’s just me, but I don’t recall reading Paul toss in as many caveats when discussing how TABOR is the cause of all our budget woes. I.e. the qualifiers seem to only go one way at the Colorado Sun.

https://coloradosun.com/2026/01/22/colorado-legislature-structural-defecit-cause/

https://i2i.org/leviathan-by-loophole-the-growth-of-colorados-state-government-after-tabor/

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.