David Olofson has been subjected to a gross miscarriage of justice. What happened to Olofson could happen to any American who owns a semi-automatic firearm. He was convicted of knowingly transferring an unregistered machine gun -- a standard semi-auto rifle which fired two three-round bursts and then jammed. Gun owners call that a malfunction. The federal government calls it an easy way to get a felony conviction. Olofson was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. David Olofson is an information technology professional with a wife, three children and a mortgage. Until his conviction, he was also in the National Guard. The Olofson Relief Fund has been set up to allow concerned Americans to help the Olfoson's make their mortgage and (their one) car payments while Dave is unable to work. If you decide to contribute to the Olofson Relief Fund, your credit card will be charged monthly for the amount you have indicated. This will continue until Olofson is out of prison -- or you notify us to discontinue the charges. Gun Owners of America is acting as the agent for the fund. All moneys collected will be transferred regularly to the mortgage and car loan holders. To make a monthly contribution, go to: http://www.gunowners.org/olofson.htm To read about this case in greater detail, see: http://www.gunowners.org/op0850.htm
I wish this wasn’t the case, because it’s not exactly enjoyable to be proven right at the expense of Colorado taxpayers. In 2004 I ran the David vs. Goliath campaign against RTD’s 67% tax increase called FasTracks. Goliath won. We said it was plainly obvious that it was going to be underfunded and over-cost. Read what we wrote back then. Of course the corporate welfare machine behind the tax increase, and Mayor Hickenlooper in front of it promised the impossible again.
But as Kevin Flynn of the Rocky Mountain News reports:
RTD conceded Friday that it cannot deliver the FasTracks program as promised to voters four years ago. The program, originally budgeted at $4.7 billion when voters approved a sales tax to support it, rose to $6.1 billion last year and is poised for a substantial increase next month during budget talks with the elected board.
This is an unfortunate situation where we taxpayers are in no situation to continue to fund this massive failure, while no mayor is willing to push the project back or cut lines in their district. At this point, everyone is looking for a viable solution. In addition to my suggestion to ask the voters to kill it, the Rocky gave some other possible solutions:
Strategies that will be discussed soon include some, all or a combination of these:
* Going beyond the original completion year of 2017.
* Trimming some project elements such as was done with the West Corridor light rail, the first FasTracks corridor to start construction.
* Shortening some of the planned lines.
* Privatizing the financing and construction of more than the two corridors now being privatized.
* Asking the legislature for permission to go to voters for additional taxes.You can bet that TaxTracks, as Ari Armstrong of FreeColorado.com calls it, will continue to dissapoint its supporters and demand more and more taxpayer money to stay afloat. Those options above are upsetting, no doubt, but fleecing our wallets continuously for another decade or so is even worse. I say we put it to another vote and let Coloradans decide if they have had enough.