September 18, 2024

Sharf: A model for meaningful property tax relief in Colorado

Joshua Sharf September 18, 2024

For a government charged with providing a variety of services, tying its limit to the value of the property being taxed makes sense.

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Ep. 201 - Ashley Hlebinsky - Devil's Advocate

You know, assault weapons are new and modern. There's never been anything like them in American history. Well, at least that's what you thought until you listened to Ashley Hlebinsky, who is a historian on how guns were developed over the last 900 years. It'll surprise you.

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Worst Gun Ever?

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Weld County Commissioner Scott James joins PowerGab Host Amy Cooke to discuss a recent divided vote on a wind and solar facility and the need for data centers, as well as other topics.

Show Notes:
Chalk Bluffs: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/commissioners-approve-1-67b-energy-development-in-north-weld-county/ar-AA2cTTKq
Data Center: https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/in-your-community/northern-colorado/weld-county-commissioners-approve-proposed-41-acre-data-center
Xcel and PUC have problems: https://www.denverpost.com/2026/09/26/xcel-power-outages-colorado/
Offer to Phil Weiser: https://x.com/TheRightAOC/status/2104340275447648478

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PowerGab Ep132 - Data Center Necessity

YouTube Video UEwyN1JnNDNac3N0Q1RlbGdMaEU5Z0gwUjVuV0pMM1l6OC4wQjA4QkVEQ0RFREIzMjFC

Ep.30: What happens when a child with dyslexia goes unidentified for years, and what can parents do to change the system?

On this episode of Learning Curve, Erin Brantley and Ross Izard talk with Lindsay and Anna from CO Kid about how a group of Colorado parents turned their personal experiences with dyslexia into a years-long effort to change education policy across the state.

For Lindsay, the fight began after her daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia in 2016. After struggling to get her the help she needed, Lindsay discovered that other parents across Colorado were running into many of the same roadblocks. What started as parents advocating within their individual school districts eventually grew into a statewide coalition pushing for better screening, intervention, and literacy policies.

Lindsay shares the deeply personal reason she stayed in the fight even after her own children were too old to benefit from many of the changes she was working toward. She saw firsthand what delayed identification did to her oldest daughter, an experience she describes as traumatic, and became determined to prevent other children from going through the same thing.

Anna shares a similar experience, including the dramatic difference between having one child identified late and another identified early. She also discusses why her experience as a foster parent has made the issue even more urgent and why she worries about children reaching adulthood without the reading skills they need.

Erin, Ross, Lindsay, and Anna also discuss what it actually takes for ordinary parents to become effective advocates: building coalitions, approaching lawmakers, testifying, working with the State Board of Education, developing relationships, facing opposition, and continuing the fight even when meaningful change takes years.

It’s a conversation about dyslexia and literacy, but also about something much bigger: what can happen when parents recognize a problem in the education system and refuse to give up until something changes.

Watch the full episode of Learning Curve to hear Lindsay and Anna’s story and how CO Kid helped turn parent advocacy into action at the Colorado State Capitol.

#Dyslexia #Literacy #Education #ColoradoEducation #ParentAdvocacy #LearningCurve #Colorado

23:55

The Delay Was Traumatic for My Daughter

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My prediction for this election: Voters will vote against … themselves.

Voters will elect Democrats to run virtually everything — and then approve ballot measures telling those Democrats to stop doing virtually everything.

Democrats for office. Limited government for policy. Colorado has reinvented ticket splitting without the inconvenience of electing Republicans.

The new ticket splitting

We used to split tickets the old-fashioned way. The same Coloradan might vote for a Democratic governor such as Dick Lamm or Roy Romer and a Republican senator such as Bill Armstrong or Hank Brown.

Voters often made sure at least one legislative chamber belonged to the party opposing the guy in the governor’s mansion.

The experts called it inconsistency. Voters called it adult supervision.

But that was then. Today, Coloradans just vote for Democrats. Years of one-party control have made the state less affordable, more bureaucratic and less tolerant — and voters are feeling it.

That will change how they vote this fall, just not in the way Republicans hope.

Coloradans will continue electing Democrats to every statewide office. They could easily hand the party veto-proof supermajorities in both the state House and Senate.

And these won’t merely be more Democrats. They will include more socialists disguised as Democrats: woke, economy-crippling, power-hungry leftists eager to engineer our lives for our own good — and charge us for the privilege.

So you might reasonably conclude Colorado voters want more taxes, more regulation and more restrictions.

I don’t think they do.

What they want is “not Republican.” More specifically: not Trump and not religious conservatives. They are repelled by the Republican brand. That’s not to be confused with swooning for Democrats.

Their votes on ballot issues will tell the real story.

With a baker’s dozen of citizen initiatives before them, Coloradans will say no to Republican candidates but might say yes to freedom, free markets and other suspiciously Republican-ish ideas.

Dissonance in the voting booth

Consider transgender policy: Voters will elect more progressive lawmakers like those who have outlawed “misgendering,” required schools to conceal a child’s transition from parents and mandated trans indoctrination in classrooms.

Those same voters will approve Proposition 134, preventing biological boys from competing on girls’ sports teams.

Elect crazed Democrats and then reverse what they do. Because, especially for suburban voters, this is more acceptable than electing Republicans.

Proposition 135 could also sneak through, preventing doctors from amputating healthy body parts from children in the name of transitioning. What a middle finger to the candidates they will be putting into office.

The message: “We dislike your policies. Please return immediately to the Capitol and make more of them.”

Taxes could produce the same routine.

Ever since the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights passed, the legislature has regularly returned like a child who has already been told there will be no more ice cream: Can we keep your tax refund now?

How about now? Now!?

If history is any guide and Prop NN joins the ash heap of anti-TABOR measures, it will again demonstrate Coloradans trust Democrats with a desk at the Capitol considerably more than they trust them with the contents of a wallet.

Amendment 87, the graduated income tax, could also fail as voters learn it isn’t indexed to inflation. If it passes, eventually everyone will pay close to double the current income-tax rate.

If it fails, voters will have delivered another “kiss my ass” to the left while voting, um, for the left.

Energy offers another opportunity as our Democrats have garroted fossil fuels. Yet voters may put a “right to natural gas” into the state constitution while reelecting the team trying to annihilate natural gas.

That’s like hiring an arsonist but passing a house rule against matches.

The legislature, the current administration and his husband have pursued a radical animal-rights agenda that antagonizes ranchers and hunters. Meanwhile, voters are likely to approve the right to hunt and fish.

And then there’s voter ID.

Every poll shows voters want it, including nearly 80% of Democrats. So of course, the Democratic legislature will never enact it. Voters will do the job that the people they keep putting into office won’t. Amendment 84, requiring identification for mail-in ballots, should pass easily.

Coloradans no longer split their tickets between Democrats and Republicans. They have devised something stranger: elect Democrats, then use citizen initiatives to protect themselves from Democratic policies.

So, Democrats for office and Republicans for policy?

Colorado ticket splitters say yes to Dems, but no to their policies

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September 18, 2024

Sharf: A model for meaningful property tax relief in Colorado

LATEST VIDEOS

SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR

LATEST PODCASTS

The new ticket splitting

Dissonance in the voting booth

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