For decades, Colorado has served as the nation’s favorite guinea pig — a testing ground for policies so bold, so idealistic and so occasionally boneheaded other states quietly thanked us for jumping in the pool first.

What Silicon Valley is for apps, Colorado is for policy experiments. Sadly, when our “beta test” crashes, there’s no “uninstall” button — just another special session.

Colorado was one of the first states to repeal the counterproductive progressive income tax and replace it with a fair, flat tax. This resulted in the current competition between states to get the lowest flat tax. Thus, the population and business exodus from California and New York to Texas and Florida.

We were the first to constitutionally cap government growth with our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

This double-barreled blast of flat tax and expenditure limitation lit Colorado’s economic engine into overdrive for three decades now. So, like trying to bring back polio, there are now efforts to bring back a progressive tax code and repeal TABOR. Of course, bringing back polio would be less damaging.

We were a forerunner of the charter school revolution with one of the first laws in the nation. Today more than 15% of all Colorado students attend a charter. If they all were in one school district, it would be the largest district in the state. All but a couple states now have charters.

We were the first to mandate a portion of transit’s bus service–the Regional Transportation District in this case–be contracted out to private companies. Same buses on same route and schedule but competitively bid brought in a 40% savings. That savings was later bonded to bring in much needed cash for the failed “Fastracks” rail nightmare.

Colorado was on the vanguard of term limits, second only to Oklahoma in a citizen’s initiative limiting a politician’s time in office. Turns out we should have limited politicians to a 3-day term. Live and learn. Some 16 states now have term limits.

Proud to say my organization, Independence Institute, was the driving force behind all these reforms. I personally take credit for all those victories even though I wasn’t even working for Independence at the time. I learned that trick from politicians.

More interesting is the flat income tax rate, charter schools and competitively contracting transit service were all signed into law by a Democratic governor, Roy Romer. This proves there was a time when Colorado Democrats did not hate taxpayers, business owners, or children.

Via a public referendum Colorado was the first to give women the right to vote. Sadly, this reform gained popularity nationally (complaints about that joke should be mailed to “Jon’s editors” at CompleteColorado).

Colorado was the first to legalize recreational marijuana. Following that example we now have some 24 states with legal recreational pot and 40 with medical marijuana. If other states follow us like that again with our new program of releasing apex predators, the nation will turn into a “Jurassic Park” sequel.

Call it courage. Call it foolishness. Either way, America can’t stop taking note of our lead, which over time has gone from reforms to empower people and limit government, to reforms to limit people’s freedoms and empower the state.

Worst is our romance with climate policy, leap-frogging California to chase the unattainable. We didn’t just embrace renewable energy — we married it, bought it a Tesla, and moved into a cabin with a compostable toilet. Colorado’s leaders have turned environmental virtue signaling into a full-time industry, complete with mandates, tax credits, consultants, and “climate equity” coordinators who couldn’t fix a thermostat if they wanted.

Try as they might our legislature can’t legislate physics. The energy crisis coming to Colorado will injure the poor the most. Business will just leave.

If our latest insane policy experiment, regulating artificial intelligence, breaks out of our laboratory the contagion could spell economic doom for the nation. Sure, it’s groovy to be the first state to strangle this tech infant in its crib. But just as Colorado made sure the oil-and-gas industry ran to less abusive states, tech companies will do the same.

Only China is laughing.

It used to be other states would say Colorado broke the mold, let’s follow them to economic success. But that was then.

Now other states can only say “thank you, Colorado, you tried it, so we don’t have to.”

Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.