Earn CEO Pay - Without Working!

Don't you hate it when your inbox overflows with something-for-nothing come-ons: like "I earned $20,000 per month without leaving my sofa!" or "You can lose 200 pounds without exercise, and still eat anything you want!" It makes you wonder what idiot would ever respond to these ads, right?

Colorado voters fall for these pitches on a regular basis: "Raise school spending every year without raising taxes!" or "Lower your tax bill every year without affecting services!" Irresponsible pundits such as Doug Bruce and Jon Caldara are the pitchmen for these con games, and voters eat it up. We don't really have a choice.

The reason we haven't had a choice, is something called the "single subject rule." This is a provision of the Colorado Constitution that prohibits ballot measures and legislation from addressing more than one subject at a time. The rule plays a useful role, preventing interest groups from hiding odious provisions inside measures that the voters otherwise strongly support. But one harmful effect of the rule is that it doesn't let us deal with the costs and benefits of government at the same time.

Because of the single-subject rule, we can ask for new services from government but we can't determine how to pay for them. Or we can lower taxes without worrying about what services will have to be cut. This is stupid. You wouldn't run your household this way.

Hey Mom, can I have an M1A1 tank for my birthday?

Sure, son.

(next week)

Dear, I guess you'll need to get a second job to pay for that M1A1 tank I bought for Junior last week.

We all know that if government were to do all the good things we know it can do, the cost would be far more than we're willing to afford. It's one of the basic facts of life, right up there with the Ten Commandments and Murphy's Law. So we have to set priorities. That means if we ask for something from government, we have to give something back, either higher taxes or giving up some other service that's less important. Sometimes these choices are pretty complex. We hire legislators to analyze them for us.

Because of the single subject rule, as well as the short attention span of the average voter, we've failed for a couple decades now to come to grips with the tradeoffs every government faces. It's coming back to haunt us: K-12 education and prisons are eating up the state budget, because of Amendment 23 and tougher sentencing laws. Yet, we've never decided how to pay for them, so the Tabor and Gallagher amendments force the state to cut colleges and transportation. As it stands, it's a great recipe for sending our business climate back to the stone age.

The Denver Post came out today in favor of an initiative by House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, to relax the single subject rule in certain cases so we can tackle this problem. It's going to be a painful process, like taking the worst-tasting medicine you can imagine, to restructure our priorities. But we don't really have a choice.

Comments

[Silent Cal]

Could you be any more insulting?

[pdt]

I can try, Cal. What did you have in mind?