Pension Review Subcommittee Archives

Sharf: Colorado taxpayers dodge some PERA bullets

Joshua Sharf September 14, 2021

Towards the end of the meeting, the idea of pension obligation bonds (POBs) seemed to be gaining momentum, either to fund the missed $225 million general fund payment to PERA from 2020, or to put more money into the system to help stabilize it.

Trump’s out of the gate barrage sends Democrats flailing

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.

Restoring America

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.

Democrats flailing

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.

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Sharf: Colorado taxpayers dodge some PERA bullets

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