A WORD FROM COLORADO... THE SKY IS FALLING?
Referendum Supporters betray GOP
By David Harsanyi
Denver Post Staff Columnist
DenverPost.com
October 10, 2005

Before you crack open your newspaper in the morning, play a little game. Try to guess which apocalyptic event Referendum C and D supporters are warning us about next.

Is it the crumbling bridges? The children forced into dilapidated buildings? Paraplegics without wheelchairs?

Is anyone buying this?

Next time you're in downtown Denver, a city where the unemployment rate already stands at a minuscule 4.9 percent, one of the lowest in the nation, walk past the almost completed Hyatt Regency, which will create an additional 560 new jobs.

You'll notice that the Hyatt stands next to a new convention center, which is not far from the new wing of the Denver Art Museum, which is not too far from a brand-new parking garage for legislators.

Get in your car. Drive past the newly renovated Denver Zoo and the Museum of Nature & Science. Turn onto Montview Boulevard in Park Hill and head east. Here you'll be hit by a spectacular display of groupthink, a forest of "Yes on C&D" yard signs house after house ... or, rather, mansion after mansion.

Oh, the suffering.

This groupthink continues in nearby Stapleton, a symbol of the booming economy. Here complaints about the budget are even less credible, as they're building schools faster than inhabitants can squeeze out the allotted 2.5 kids.

Stapleton not only sits close to the new Children's Hospital and University of Colorado Health Sciences Center but is also next to lower-income neighborhoods, reaping dividends from it all.

Yet, we're supposed to believe the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights was a failure?

You could, I suppose, buy into this notion if, like Democratic legislators Andrew Romanoff and Joan Fitz-Gerald, you believe a $2.5 trillion federal budget and $15 billion state budget means government is starving.

Why, even a typically clearheaded leader such as Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput has come out in favor of C and D. (Incidentally, why is it that when the church sides with the left, there's no talk of a theocracy? I guess nothing brings the powerful together like stiffing the middle class.)

Curiously, it's been Republican supporters of C and D who have turned their backs on their constituents. They've employed scare-mongering, personal attacks and truth-twisting. But hey, that's your run-of-the-mill political campaign.

What's worse is that these Republicans have helped perpetuate the myth that opposition to overtaxation means you don't care about "people."

They know very well that the only "people" helped by C and D are politicians, whose job will be infinitely easier without budget constraints.

Clearly, they realize C and D won't help working and middle-class families. Those folks can use an extra $3,000, $1,000, or even $1 to help pay the mortgage, day care or health care.

In fact, in whatever manner hard-working families choose to spend their own money, they'll be doing a lot more for "people" than the Republican governor or Democratic legislators.

But at least I know where Democrats stand - and not just because a bunch of them want me dead.

Take, for instance, "Republican" Sen. Steve Johnson, who not only supports the "budget fix" but feels the need to take marching orders from Democratic leaders.

Why should any fiscal conservative trust him again?

And if you think bipartisanship is a warm and fuzzy idea, let's talk about it the day after Johnson persuades Democrats to march across Colorado in support of tax cuts.

What about Gov. Bill Owens? Here, we have a mystery. Why didn't he negotiate a reasonable compromise on TABOR, focusing on the ratchet, a hard spending cap or a promise to revisit Amendment 23?

It matters little now. Though this whole affair does clear up another mystery: why Republicans lost power in a solid Red State.

They don't deserve it.

David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.