Democrat Congressman Jared Polis - who’s running for governor of Colorado - wants to radicalize the Centennial State into becoming another California. To that, all Coloradans should say “No thanks!”.
California has long been the poster child for why radical far-left policies hurt working families. California’s ever-increasing taxes, unaffordable cost of living, high poverty rate, and massive traffic congestion have made the state so unlivable that Californians are voting with their feet and moving to other states in droves.
Just look at the numbers. According to Census Bureau Data, California experienced a net loss of 138,000 people just between July 2016 and July 2017. Unsurprisingly, a USC Dornsife/LA Times pollfrom November 2017 found that Californians view the high cost of living as the most important issue facing the state.
But, although radical far-left policies have failed in California, Polis wants to bring this model to Colorado. Throughout his career, Polis has consistently pushed for higher taxes. In Congress, he introduced legislation to raise taxes on millions of Americans. He also wants to repeal a longstanding law that limits how much tax revenue the state can collect and advocates for making working families pay more taxes on their energy bills. How very “California” of him.
Polis is also committed to imposing single-layer healthcare on Colorado. But in California, the state’s own Legislative Analyst office said single-payer would cost up to $400 billion a year, with $100 billion of that coming from new taxes. Is that really what Polis wants for Colorado? An additional $100 billion tax burden on working families?
Despite its critical role in Colorado’s economy, Polis is hostile toward the energy industry and the tens of thousands of hard-working Coloradans it employs. In 2014, he supported a ballot measures that many considered a backdoor ban on hydraulic fracturing. According to one estimate by the University of Colorado, such a ban would cost the state more than 90,000 jobs. Even Colorado’s current Democrat Governor John Hickenlooper has argued Polis’s energy policies are “radical” and “extreme measures that would drive oil and gas out of Colorado.” But once again - that may be okay for someone looking to turn Colorado into California.
Simply put: Colorado can’t afford Jared Polis’s California-style, radical policies. They haven’t worked out very well for the Golden State, and they won’t work for Colorado.