Jared Polis' Ruse Exposed

Jared Polis’ Ruse Exposed

February 3, 2020

Citizen Press Staff

Polis is just another sneaky politician…

Boulder, CO – During his campaign for governor and his first two years in office, Colorado Governor Jared Polis has expressed his desire for a tax cut. As conservatives or even as general citizens, the idea of being able to keep more of your hard-earned money is a great idea. A tax cut is a policy we would even support, sans any strings attached. Rumor has it that Polis even approached Republican leadership in both the State Senate and House about running a tax cut. Republicans were, of course, receptive, although the devil was in the details. Weakening the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) was on the table (non-starter), and making other constitutional changes were also proposed.
One of the justifications for a tax cut is under TABOR when tax revenues exceed a population plus inflation increase over the previous year’s state budget, that money MUST be refunded to taxpayers. Of course, politicians HATE giving you your money back after they’ve stolen collected your hard-earned tax dollars. One of the ways around the refund is to lower the tax rate, and that affects the revenue based on the previous year’s state income tax filings.
There is precedent here in Colorado. Back in the 1990s, the last time we had a Republican governor, he worked with the Republican legislature, and taxes were lowered to their current levels of 4.63% for income and 2.9% for sales taxes. We all benefit from lower taxes, and anytime this happens, it is a good thing. However, here is the rub with Jared Polis. Polis is a Democrat, and the legislature is run by Democrats. Democrats hate giving you your money back. So while Jared Polis was floating the idea of a tax cut, he knew there was ZERO chance of it making it out of a Democratic-controlled legislature.
Essentially, this is an empty campaign promise that Polis also made during both of his State of the State addresses. To the weathered politico, this was clearly a ruse. To the average voter, they probably considered it to be a possibility.
So, Republicans have proposed a tax rate deduction in the last two legislative sessions. Can you guess it’s fate? Yep, the legislation was unceremoniously killed by Democrats.
Did this legislation have a chance of passing? Did Polis try to flex his political muscle to get this tax cut a fair hearing? The answers are no and no.
Some Education about the State Legislature For those of you that don’t know how the Colorado State Legislature REALLY works, here is a quick primer. In the House, the Speaker of the House decides who is on what committees and which committee each piece of introduced legislation goes. In the Senate, it is usually the Senate Majority leader who does this…sometimes the Senate President as well. As you can guess, all of these people are now Democrats.
When the Speaker or Majority Leader makes committee assignments, they usually do this with something in mind. They want to make sure specific legislation will either be voted down or killed in committee or voted out. So they will stack legislators on these committees that will do their bidding.
Usually, at least one committee in the House and one committee in the Senate are stacked with hyper-partisan leadership loyalists. These committees are structured to force legislation out of committee on a party-line vote or kill it. Usually, it’s to kill the legislation House, or Senate leadership doesn’t like. These committees are labeled the “Kill Committees.”
The kill committees in both the House and Senate have traditionally been the State Veterans and Military Affairs (Often referred to as “State Affairs”) committees. If you’re a conservative legislator in the minority, this is where all your good bills on the 2nd Amendment, Right to Life, School Choice…and tax cuts go to die. It’s been pre-ordained if your good conservative bill is sent to State Affairs, it is dead. It has no chance of seeing the light of day.

Back to the ruse

Can you guess which committee the tax-cut legislation, supposedly supported by Jared Polis, was sent? Yep, that’s right – State Affairs. These bills were dead-on-arrival. Jared Polis knew the tax cuts had ZERO chance of passing. His promise of tax cuts was empty, and he knew it.
That was his ruse, and the tax cut legislation for 2020 was killed on Wednesday…for the second year in a row. That’s less than two weeks after he supported a tax cut in his State of the State speech.
Jared Polis is a liar, and the Democrats will keep on trying to steal more of your money. You can bank on it!