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Tag: Common Sense Institute

Colorado families hit from every angle as taxes and fees outpace income growth
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado families hit from every angle as taxes and fees outpace income growth

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice The latest analysis from the Common Sense Institute shows Denver-area households feeling a real financial squeeze, and it’s not just higher prices driving it. The report finds that since 2016, the typical household’s tax and fee load has jumped 48 percent while pre-tax income has grown only 27 percent. Inflation Has Hit Essentials Hardest CSI’s findings line up with what national inflation data has shown over the past few years. Prices climbed fastest from 2021 through 2023. According to the Consumer Price Index, the cumulative increase during that stretch was around 15.7 percent - compared with about 7.8 percent from 2016 to 2020. Families noticed it most in the basics.  Grocery prices jumped as well. In 20...
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Colorado theft crisis: More crime, fewer inmates, and mounting economic fallout
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado theft crisis: More crime, fewer inmates, and mounting economic fallout

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice A Growing Problem That Stores Can’t Ignore Ask almost any retailer in Colorado what’s changed over the last few years, and you’ll hear some version of the same thing: theft isn’t a once-in-a-while headache anymore. It’s constant. The Common Sense Institute recently put numbers to what stores have been describing, and the scale is hard to miss. Police logged just over 27,000 shoplifting reports in 2024 — a jump of more than 22 percent in a single year. And that figure doesn’t capture most of what’s happening. Many stores no longer call police unless something turns aggressive. CSI cites national surveys suggesting that as much as nine in ten retail thefts never make it into official police statistics. If that holds true...
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Study Warns Colorado’s High Theft Threshold Fueling Retail Crime Growth
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Study Warns Colorado’s High Theft Threshold Fueling Retail Crime Growth

By Mark Samuelson | Colorado Politics Shoplifting and other forms of retail crime are seeing a sharp rise as Colorado heads into the holidays, according to a study. After falling from a recent-record 24,975 thefts reported in 2015 to around 18,000 in 2021, Colorado Bureau of Investigation data show a jump to more than 27,000 shoplifting crimes in 2024, according to former Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, who co-authored the study. The study was released in the past week by the Greenwood Village-based Common Sense Institute. It reported that shoplifting hotspots include Adams County, with 52,333 incidents over the span from 2014 to 2024; followed by Jefferson County, with 34,241 incidents; and El Paso County, 33,339 over the span. Other counties posting high numbers ...
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Colorado’s “Reform Paradox”: Falling Recidivism, Rising Violence, and the Real-World Cost of Dangerous Releases
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s “Reform Paradox”: Falling Recidivism, Rising Violence, and the Real-World Cost of Dangerous Releases

By Shaina Cole | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The Common Sense Institute’s October report shows Colorado’s three-year recidivism rate falling from about 52 percent in 2019 to near 31 percent in 2022. On paper that looks like improvement. In practice, the number tells only a small piece of the story.  CSI makes it clear that the number drops mostly because fewer people are going to prison at all. The state’s incarcerated population has shrunk, felony filings are down, and more defendants are getting funneled into diversion programs or handed PR bonds under Colorado’s evolving bail practices. When the state isn’t locking people up, fewer people return to prison later. That’s not a public-safety miracle. It’s just the math. Ask people who actually live here whether things...
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Last-minute voter? Your refund might be on the menu
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Last-minute voter? Your refund might be on the menu

By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board Still sitting on your ballot? You’re not alone—Colorado’s full of last-minute voters trying to make sense of Propositions LL and MM before the drop box closes. Both deal with “Healthy School Meals for All,” a free lunch program with a not-so-free price tag. And depending how you vote, your refund might just end up on the menu. How we got here Back in 2022, voters approved Proposition FF, the “Healthy School Meals for All” program that promised every K–12 student a free lunch. It sounded simple until someone had to pay for it. The money came from a new tax on Coloradans earning $300,000 or more—along with wage hikes for cafeteria workers and a nudge to use more local ingredients. Fast-forward to 2025, and the legislature realized there’s e...
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Colorado Ballot Measures LL and MM Risk Wasting More Taxpayer Dollars
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Ballot Measures LL and MM Risk Wasting More Taxpayer Dollars

By The Gazette Editorial Board | Commentary, The Denver Gazette As if Coloradans needed another reason to vote against the tax hikes of Propositions LL and MM — placed on this November’s ballot by our free-spending legislature — a new analysis released this week provides as good an argument as any. The Common Sense Institute’s latest report on the subject reminds us the fundamentally misguided state program that LL and MM are intended to bail out — “Healthy School Meals For All” — is a money pit. Adding tax dollars to it is like pouring water on quicksand. That harsh reality was inevitable from the time the free food giveaway was created in 2022. That was the year ruling Democrats at the legislature evidently got bored with providing free meals only to the low-income children who ...
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USDA move to Fort Collins could add 6,000 jobs and $1B in output, study finds
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

USDA move to Fort Collins could add 6,000 jobs and $1B in output, study finds

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s planned relocation of up to 2,600 employees to Fort Collins could bring more than $1 billion in new business output and over 6,000 new jobs to the area by the end of next year, according to a study by the think tank Common Sense Institute. In July, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the department would be relocating up to 2,600 personnel and operations to five new hubs, including Fort Collins. According to CSI study authors Dr. Caitlin McKennie and Cooper Pollard, the move is expected to “stimulate job creation, bolster local businesses, and enhance collaboration with Colorado State University,” which ranks 23rd in the nation for agricultural sciences. Agriculture plays a “vital role...
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Denver’s Spending Grew 60% in a Decade, But Revenues and Population Lagged Far Behind
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Denver’s Spending Grew 60% in a Decade, But Revenues and Population Lagged Far Behind

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Denver’s budget has grown sharply over the past ten years, far faster than its population and its ability to bring in tax dollars. A new analysis from the Common Sense Institute shows inflation-adjusted spending per resident rose about 60 percent since 2015. During that period, revenues grew more slowly, at about 40 percent, while the city’s population increased by less than 7 percent. The mismatch is why Denver now faces a projected $250 million gap over the next two years, even as officials push a $950 million bond proposal for housing, roads, and other projects. Spending Priorities Have Shifted Where the money goes has changed dramatically. Construction and infrastructure costs have ballooned, climbing more than elev...
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Wolf Reintroduction Sparks Debate at Upcoming Colorado Town Hall
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State, Approved, The Gazette

Wolf Reintroduction Sparks Debate at Upcoming Colorado Town Hall

By The Gazette Staff | The Gazette Agriculture and outdoor recreation are considered two of Colorado’s most important industries. The outdoor recreation industry contributes over $65.8 billion and 511,000 jobs to Colorado’s economy, while the agriculture industry generates $47 billion and 195,000 jobs annually, according to the most recent data. Yet as Colorado Politics’ recent Rural Reckoning series indicated, these two powerhouses don’t always get the attention that industries do in the halls of the Capitol. A town hall on Tuesday, Sept. 9, sponsored by The Gazette and The Common Sense Institute, will dive more deeply into the importance of these industries to Colorado’s economic success, and the policies necessary to ensure they thrive. The Common Sense Institute is a non...
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Study warns that short-term rentals are pricing out local residents
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The Aspen Times, Approved, State

Study warns that short-term rentals are pricing out local residents

By Robert Tann | The Aspen Times Home prices in Colorado’s mountain resort communities have skyrocketed over the past 13 years, with a new report further detailing the erosion of affordability for working residents.  A study released on Wednesday by the Colorado-based think tank Common Sense Institute shows home prices in seven Western Slope counties — Eagle, Garfield, Grand, Pitkin, Routt, San Miguel and Summit — have more than doubled or, in some cases, tripled since 2012.  The Common Sense Institute researches and promotes free-enterprise economic policy and bills itself as “nonpartisan.” Several of its board members, however, have ties to the Republican Party, and the organization has accepted funds from the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado. The study bases...
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