
House Bill 1208: Price controls for a minimum wage mistake
When it comes to wages, we’re supposed to pretend price controls don’t matter.
When it comes to wages, we’re supposed to pretend price controls don’t matter.
Colorado’s hateful minimum wage laws are now preventing my son, who has Down syndrome, from having a meaningful and fulfilling life.
Despite Beltrone’s early statement in the meeting about “extensive staff outreach to the stakeholders,” feedback on the plan was anything but robust according to Edgewater City Manager Dan Maples’ comments in the April 18 meeting. Maples said that a survey sent to businesses that had “some information” about the increases had only had four returned as of the meeting.
It’s a fantasy that millions of American workers are struggling to support a family on minimum wages.
Colorado could find itself in a situation where folks are desperate for a job, but because of the constitutional mandate, no one can afford to hire them.
Cities can now raise the minimum wage, but they can’t lower it. That’s not local control. That’s
a one-way ratchet.
Amendment 70 does not, indeed it cannot, lead to increased prosperity for the State of Colorado. It will in fact hurt the very people it is intended to help.
It’s a frequent misconception that businesses “absorb” certain costs. They don’t.
There’s no such thing as a free minimum wage. The effects include throwing some people out of work, who will then get the real minimum wage of zero.
Instead of delivering the promised “living wage” of $15 an hour, economic realities created by the new law have dropped the hourly wage for these workers to zero.
If the minimum wage helps people live, it creates more jobs, it does all of these wonderful things by itself, then why stop at 15 dollars an hour?
Colorado is one of 19 states in 2013 that have minimum wages higher than the federal standard. In every state, the law establishing the higher wage applies. In other words, if the federal rate goes to more than $8, that would prevail here even though our minimum is in the state constitution.
By Mike Rosen
Early in the 2024 Republican presidential nominating process I wasn’t enthused about Donald Trump. While I approved of his accomplishments as president and his public policy agenda, I thought his brash style and the clumsy way he ended his presidency would be a drawback, and that someone like Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley was a more electable and capable choice. As it turned out, I was wrong.
Not since FDR’s election in 1932, has any American president come out of the starting gate with such a barrage of action as has Trump (which he began as president-elect even before his inauguration). This Trump bullrush was essential and I doubt anyone else would have had the balls to do it.
Trump anticipated the all-out opposition of congressional Democrats, deep-state bureaucrats, and the liberal media. He apparently learned a lot about governing from his first term, and now he needn’t worry about reelection. A quick start in the first year of a presidency is a must. By the second year the opposition digs in for the midterm election. That’s already happened with nitwit Democrat “leaders” like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, and AOC making fools of themselves hyper-ventilating at confirmation hearings and protest rallies in the streets.
Our founders creatively reengineered democracy, limiting government and fashioning a constitutional Republic driven by the energy of capitalism that became the freest, most stable, and productive system of political economy the world has ever known. In the process it delivered an unheard-of standard of living to its populace.
By 2024, that vision was unrecognizable. The Biden presidency (in name only) cemented Barrack Obama’s fundamental transformation of America into a big-government, intrusive, bureaucratic, welfare-state that can’t educate its kids or balance its books. Identity politics has replaced individuality and divided the people, defining everyone by race, ethnicity, class, gender, or disability. The Democrat progressive cartel that dominates public schools, higher education, the media, and entertainment has turned many Americans against our history, religion, values, and principles.
The mission of Trump and the Republican congress is to roll all that back and fundamentally restore America to its best self. The agenda also includes cooling global warming paranoia, repealing the Green New Deal, unleashing America’s oil and gas resources, and expanding nuclear energy, which will bring down consumer price inflation. The newfound electoral coalition that swept Republicans into power in 2024 will be parlayed into an even bigger win in the 2026 mid-terms.
Why are Democrats outraged at Elon Musk for trying to make the government more efficient? Because they don’t care about efficiency. Government is their all-powerful deity that must always be enlarged to solve all our problems. No, Musk wasn’t elected, he was appointed by Trump just like thousands of other non-civil service federal officials every president is empowered to appoint without Senate confirmation. Musk’s DOGE investigators caught the public’s attention by exposing the U.S. Agency for International Development’s wasteful spending on politicized progressive projects worldwide. But Democrats have asked the court to block DOGE’s access to this kind of information. On the contrary, it’s essential to restore accountability.
USAID was created during JFK’s presidency to win the affection of underdeveloped nations. Obviously, it hasn’t. Most of those nations habitually vote against U.S. interests in the U.N General Assembly. Our generous humanitarian aid worldwide goes largely unappreciated, although perhaps half the world’s population would love to come here even as illegal immigrants.
It’s preposterous that Democrats attacking Trump pretend to represent “the public” when it was most of the voting public that turned the Democrats out, rejecting their progressive policies, choosing Trump over Kamala, and giving Republicans control of both houses of Congress. Trump is just delivering on his campaign promises as was to be expected. No, Trump isn’t “a threat to democracy” as Democrats absurdly contend. But he is a threat to their control of the country and thank heavens for that.
Colorado and Denver are microcosms of all this. The Democrats’ iron-grip on government has Californiacated our once-conservative state. The state legislature and Denver city council continue to pile on yet more intrusive, Big Brother, nannyist, progressive laws and regulations to mold our behavior, reduce our freedoms and raise our taxes. Next, they’ll put a bicycle encircled by bollard protecters on our state flag. As we watch California self-destruct, it’s hardly a model to follow.
It’s halfway through the 2025 legislative session in Colorado. PowerGab Hosts Jake Fogleman and Amy Cooke have been keeping tabs on the good, the bad, and the ugly energy legislation and they discuss the bills and their likeliness of becoming laws.
Show Notes:
-HB25-1040: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1040
-HB25-1126: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1126
-HB25-1177: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1177
-HB25-1277: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1277
-HB25-1234: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1234
-HB25-1260: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1260
Is the city of Denver dying? With crime, a high minimum wage and stifling regulations, over 200 restaurants have gone out of business. Andrew Feinstein, proprietor of EXDO, which includes the famous nightclub Tracks, details the situation and what can fix it.