New Democrat Update - September 2006
THE PARTY OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
The gubernatorial race between former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter (D) and Congressman Bob Beauprez (R) highlights an interesting new reality. Increasingly, Democrats are dominating the issue of economic opportunity, while Republicans dismiss the key ingredients of private sector growth and “don’t care about education, health care or transportation. They think cutting taxes solves all problems,” said former GOP State Rep. Bill Kaufman of Loveland in the Rocky Mountain News.
Ritter and his fellow New Democrats in the legislature believe Colorado's economic engine depends on an entrepreneurial strategy that created the boom in the 1990s - fiscal discipline and investment in people. As part of a balanced budget, they are advocating investment in education (from early childhood to university research), child care, lifelong learning, and supports for innovation and entrepreneurship. In other words, they are using every tool of state fiscal policy to nurture a healthy business climate by expanding the private economy's capacity to create wealth, make Coloradans more productive and, ultimately, help restore mass upward mobility.
Meanwhile, Beauprez and most members of his party do not have a clue about what to do with today’s economy. They continue to push an old and tired crony-capitalism agenda, which fails miserably because it focuses on the old economy factors - capital and labor quantity, not the much more important new factors of capital and labor quality.
Voters, as well as the business community, know that agenda only leads to slower growth, no real increases in productivity, stagnant incomes and rising budget deficits. In fact, the Census Bureau just reported that in Colorado, over the last year, incomes went down and poverty shot up. In the real world, it is not just lower tax rates, but productivity growth, spurred by innovation, that is key to raising real wages, living standards and expanding opportunity for everybody.
The differences in the gubernatorial race became clear when Beauprez supported two ballot measures that promise to play havoc with the state’s economic future. The first reversed Referendum C which allowed the legislature to make key economic investments - public education, colleges and universities, infrastructure and transportation. The second, Amendment 38, makes it easier to play more mischief with ballot initiatives - the very problem that started the state’s pre-C woes in the first place.
To say that the business community was puzzled and downright alarmed by Beauprez’s support for both measures is an understatement. Chuck Berry, president of the Colorado Association of Commere and Industry (CACI), the state’s chamber of commerce, said “Amendment 38 will undercut Colorado’s representative government and the legislative process in a state that already is one of the easiest to initiate ballot measures. Colorado should instead focus on making statewide policy using measured committee review and legislative processes, while bolstering trust in our elected officials.”
As quoted in The Denver Post, Tamra Ward of the Denver Metro Chamber agrees. “It’s concerning to the business community in many ways. It (the initiative) can tie up government.” If taxpayers are ever going to get more for their money, we must have a much more flexible state budget that invests more in the future and spends less on the present and the past.
Reversing C raised even more hackles after CACI, the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and many other chambers across the state had worked so hard to pass the original measure. Fortunately for Colorado, the Reverse-C proponents withdrew their proposal and, after an outcry from the business community, Beauprez withdrew his support for 38. Unfortunately for the Republican candidate, the die has been cast - his flip-flops are reinforcing his “Both Ways Bob” persona and forging a consensus that a Governor Beauprez would not be good for Colorado’s economic future.
If Ritter prevails in November and Democrats stay in control of the legislature, everyday Coloradans and the business community will have much to celebrate. Ritter’s agenda, combined with the track record of the Democratic legislature, offers much hope.
Under the leadership of House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Speaker Pro Tem Cheri Jahn, Democrats kept faith with voters by ensuring that C-related revenues were invested as promised - in a skilled workforce, health care and transportation - and in a fiscally disciplined manner. Specifically, they expanded access to preschool and full-day kindergarten, made college tuition more affordable, green-lighted 36 transportation projects, provided the resources to repair roads and bridges, reduced our reliance on foreign oil by promoting renewable energy and addressed the state’s water shortage.
Democrats also passed a very aggressive jobs package targeted at Colorado’s tourism, film, and bioscience industries. As State Rep. Tom Plant indicated, these investments will “diversify our economy, increase jobs and local tax revenue while insulating the state from the impacts of future downturns.” Additionally, State Sen. Jennifer Veiga pushed a measure through the legislature that provides companies significant incentives to create high-quality jobs in both urban and rural areas.
Reviews of the legislature's performance have been very positive. Ward from the Denver chamber gave lawmakers an “A” for their work on the economy. Berry of CACI was quoted in The Denver Post, “At the beginning of the session, there was a lot of talk about whether they will keep faith with voters. As we got into the session, it became a non-issue.” Even Republican Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, a vocal opponent of C, said “The Referendum C dollars were spent the way voters were told they would be spent.”
Neil Westergaard, editor of the Denver Business Journal, wrote during the session, ". . .the Democrats are backing economic-development programs, marketing initiatives and transportation improvements - to the delight of chambers of commerce and other business groups...Meanwhile, many Republicans are revealing a distinct distrust of business."
In another more recent editorial, he wrote, “Some Republicans appear to care very little about what it takes to have a vibrant economy, a competitive, educated work force or a transportation system that moves people around efficiently. These neo-Republicans worship at the altar of low taxes as the answer to every problem.”
Broad-based economic growth, generated in the private sector, is the prerequisite to expanding opportunity for everyone. The right way to restore Colorado's prosperity is to ensure that the state has well-educated employees, state-of-the-art technology, a fiscally disciplined government and infrastructure networks that link firms and customers to markets. That means a balanced budget, a cost-effective regulatory system and smart public investments in worker education and skills training, a strong research and development infrastructure, and top-flight transportation and communications systems.
State Democrats get all that. Increasingly, Republicans don’t.
READ “THE PLAN”
Are you curious about how Democrats will govern if they take control of the U.S. Senate and House? For a clue, get the new book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, authored by Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel and national DLC President Bruce Reed.