Outside the Springs

Aggressive environmentalism in Colorado is creating policies that will impact our economy and quality of life. In places like Northern Scandinavia, Uganda and Ecuador, ideas promoting a lifestyle fully integrated with nature, nature as-is (or as-was), are causing economic suffering for residents.

Now that the 2022 mid-term election is behind us, the results of most of the ballot questions are official. Locally, not many issues were brought to the ballots, but statewide there were nearly a dozen.

The future of Social Security benefits has been discussed extensively by experts for the last two decades. At around the change of the millennium, economists started seeing an issue with the way social security benefits are paid for by the workforce and received by retirees.

The Colorado State Legislature in 2021 passed Senate Bill 260, a nearly $5.4 transportation bill that tackles several large items at the same time including fixing and expanding highways, and boosting various transit projects.

For the last few years, a hot real estate market changed the landscape for those buying, selling or building new homes. The coronavirus pandemic changed mindsets and forced people to rethink their living situations.

Anyone who has read a newspaper or watched the news knows that the country and the globe are seeing high levels of inflation. In fact, the statistics show that the U.S. has seen record-high levels of inflation over the last several months.

Last spring, bills hit the Colorado and U.S. legislatures to get rid of the biannual tradition of changing the clocks. In fact, the debate turned from whether or not we should get rid of the time-changing tradition to if we should stay in standard time (the time during winter) or stay in daylight saving time (the time during the summer).

Colorado voters wanted a voice in how their state revenues were being utilized, especially when it came to potential tax increases. In 1992, those voices were heard when The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) Amendment was approved by Colorado voters.

In Colorado, there is an electoral eclipse approaching. Not all states have these many things lined up for the voters in the same year. Numerous consequential state and state-national leadership roles are teed up for a decision on the November election day. All that, in addition to several ballot initiatives.

A thin blue booklet, heavier than a wet magazine and lighter than a Bible, began appearing in the mailboxes of Colorado voters in the last couple weeks.