Senator Greg Brophy keeps us all informed about the goofy, illogical, and at times immoral things that go on under the golden dome on Colfax avenue. Reprinted here is his latest newsletter, with my commentary in bold.
The Car Tax
SB09-108, the Car Tax passed the House 34-31 on Wednesday. All of the Republicans and three Democrats voted against it.
I thought Ref. C was supposed to take care of things like that, and a whole lot of other things as well!
Kudos to State Rep Jerry Sonnenberg (R-Sterling) for adding an amendment to allow new axle configurations to be used by trucks in Colorado. This is something that I have been working on since my first year in the House and Jerry pulled it off!
So? There are some with a sense of logic down there? Astounding, simply astounding!
I expect the Senate to concur with House amendments today, Friday the 27th. I am truly sorry that we were unable to derail this quarter billion dollar tax increase levied during a recession.
Hold on Colorado! A full blown depression is heading your way like a train with a stuck throttle! Brought to you by the Bill Ritter Express!
Another Car Tax
Senator Morse (D-Colorado Springs) added an additional buck to each car registration for a grant program for emergency services.
A dollar here, a dollar there. Special Districts are probably the fastest growing taxes in the state. People regularly over-ride Tabor for Special Districts without really understanding the consequences, and now this?
Of course, administering the grant program will require three brand new state employees. Take a look at the fiscal note for SB09-002. You can see that this grant program already exists and has about $2.9 million available each year, but adding another $4.9 million to it will require more state employees. Why can’t the existing employees dole out the money? This can’t be that hard; I’m absolutely positive that existing staff can write more checks.
Bureaucracy in action !
The additional new employees aren’t the only insulting part of the tax (fee) increase. Only 11% of emergency service calls go to car wrecks. Eleven percent. Eighty nine percent of the time our car registration will be subsidizing other emergency services.
I think the stats are off a bit, but the point is still the same. Most cited statistics that I have seen for fire departments ( which respond to medical emergencies along with Police, and EMS) show that ninety percent, or even higher are for medical calls. In my experience Motor Vehicle Accidents account for roughly twenty percent of those emergency responses. Sounds a lot like using cigarette taxes for anything but smoking cessation programs.
Will this ever end?
Paper or Plastic?
We killed the Plastic Bag Reduction Act on Tuesday.
The bill would have taxed plastic bags at grocery stores and other large stores six cents each bag for the next three years and then banned the plastic bags altogether in 2012.
I know, don’t we have more important things to do? Well, yes, but Senator Veiga introduced the bill and under our Constitution, it had to have a hearing.
The background story is this: the idea was brought by a bunch of high school kids who have been brain washed about the importance of saving the environment from humans since grade school. So they decided to rid the earth of the scourge of plastic bags.
The problem is that the alternative of convenience, for those times when folks forget to bring their canvas bags is paper and paper actually fills up land fills three times faster than plastic bags, plus bringing the paper bags to the stores takes three times as many trucks!
Talk about unintended consequences.
Or maybe “stupid is as stupid does..?”
Marriage Tax
Senator Tax Morse is back raising taxes and calling them fees by this time taxing marriage.
The current charge for a marriage license is $10. Seven dollars goes the local county clerk for handling the transaction and the other three dollars is spent on state record keeping of the data.
That’s just what a government fee is supposed to do, cover the cost of administering the program.
Along comes Senator Morse with a strong desire to find a way to fund domestic violence programs in the state, so what does he do? Increase the fee on a marriage license from $10 to $30 and convert that additional twenty bucks into domestic violence funding.
Fact: Men are overwhelmingly charged with non-felony D.V. in Colorado. Unless you are a celebrity of have social or political connections you are denied probation, and still have to attend thirty-six weeks of “counseling” that the man has to pay for in full. Additionally, the court assesses fines, much of which already goes toward DV programs such as safe houses and hot lines. Court ordered mysandry and the lawmakers refuse to deal with it because of political correctness.
Never mind that married couples are three times less likely to have domestic violence issues. Never mind that fees are supposed to be related to the cost of the program. He just wants the money.
YOUR MONEY!
I have decided to join the world of FaceBook. I am not the most professional politician in the world, so I am actually using mine as it was intended – almost strictly for social purposes. If you want to “friend” me, search FB for Greg Brophy. I think this link will work: http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/profile.php?id=1192617444&ref=profile
I am also using Twitter as SenatorBrophy. You can follow me on Twitter go to http://twitter.com/SenatorBrophy for that.
Finally, I always appreciate a campaign donation you can do that through PayPal by clicking on the “Donate” button, but don’t click if you are a lobbyist or have a bill in front of the legislature this session.
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 