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Did you know 46% of the voters in Colorado are unaffiliated? Have you ever wondered why? Hear from the experts at Independence Institute talk about the issues important to Colorado and how to bring some sanity to this increasingly leftist state.

  1. 1d ago

    Colorado ticket splitters say yes to Dems, but no to their policies

    My prediction for this election: Voters will vote against … themselves. Voters will elect Democrats to run virtually everything — and then approve ballot measures telling those Democrats to stop doing virtually everything. Democrats for office. Limited government for policy. Colorado has reinvented ticket splitting without the inconvenience of electing Republicans. The new ticket splittingWe used to split tickets the old-fashioned way. The same Coloradan might vote for a Democratic governor such as Dick Lamm or Roy Romer and a Republican senator such as Bill Armstrong or Hank Brown. Voters often made sure at least one legislative chamber belonged to the party opposing the guy in the governor’s mansion. The experts called it inconsistency. Voters called it adult supervision. But that was then. Today, Coloradans just vote for Democrats. Years of one-party control have made the state less affordable, more bureaucratic and less tolerant — and voters are feeling it. That will change how they vote this fall, just not in the way Republicans hope. Coloradans will continue electing Democrats to every statewide office. They could easily hand the party veto-proof supermajorities in both the state House and Senate. And these won’t merely be more Democrats. They will include more socialists disguised as Democrats: woke, economy-crippling, power-hungry leftists eager to engineer our lives for our own good — and charge us for the privilege. So you might reasonably conclude Colorado voters want more taxes, more regulation and more restrictions. I don’t think they do. What they want is “not Republican.” More specifically: not Trump and not religious conservatives. They are repelled by the Republican brand. That’s not to be confused with swooning for Democrats. Their votes on ballot issues will tell the real story. With a baker’s dozen of citizen initiatives before them, Coloradans will say no to Republican candidates but might say yes to freedom, free markets and other suspiciously Republican-ish ideas. Dissonance in the voting boothConsider transgender policy: Voters will elect more progressive lawmakers like those who have outlawed “misgendering,” required schools to conceal a child’s transition from parents and mandated trans indoctrination in classrooms. Those same voters will approve Proposition 134, preventing biological boys from competing on girls’ sports teams. Elect crazed Democrats and then reverse what they do. Because, especially for suburban voters, this is more acceptable than electing Republicans. Proposition 135 could also sneak through, preventing doctors from amputating healthy body parts from children in the name of transitioning. What a middle finger to the candidates they will be putting into office. The message: “We dislike your policies. Please return immediately to the Capitol and make more of them.” Taxes could produce the same routine. Ever since the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights passed, the legislature has regularly returned like a child who has already been told there will be no more ice cream: Can we keep your tax refund now? How about now? Now!? If history is any guide and Prop NN joins the ash heap of anti-TABOR measures, it will again demonstrate Coloradans trust Democrats with a desk at the Capitol considerably more than they trust them with the contents of a wallet. Amendment 87, the graduated income tax, could also fail as voters learn it isn’t indexed to inflation. If it passes, eventually everyone will pay close to double the current income-tax rate. If it fails, voters will have delivered another “kiss my ass” to the left while voting, um, for the left. Energy offers another opportunity as our Democrats have garroted fossil fuels. Yet voters may put a “right to natural gas” into the state constitution while reelecting the team trying to annihilate natural gas. That’s like hiring an arsonist but passing a house rule against matches. The legislature, the current administration and his husband have pursued a radical animal-rights agenda that antagonizes ranchers and hunters. Meanwhile, voters are likely to approve the right to hunt and fish. And then there’s voter ID. Every poll shows voters want it, including nearly 80% of Democrats. So of course, the Democratic legislature will never enact it. Voters will do the job that the people they keep putting into office won’t. Amendment 84, requiring identification for mail-in ballots, should pass easily. Coloradans no longer split their tickets between Democrats and Republicans. They have devised something stranger: elect Democrats, then use citizen initiatives to protect themselves from Democratic policies. So, Democrats for office and Republicans for policy?

  2. 4d ago

    The bodily integrity case for yes on Colorado’s Prop 135

    Proposition 135 on this fall’s ballot would prohibit sex-change surgery on minors. Call it “gender-affirming surgery” if that makes the amputation sound more compassionate. I’ll admit, I struggled with how to vote. Not because I think children should undergo these surgeries, but because I’m suspicious whenever government barges into a family’s decisions. The question is whether stopping these surgeries is a legitimate function of government. The sovereign individualOn emotional issues, like this one, it’s worth asking whether your vote grows out of principle or emotion. If you haven’t figured out your guiding principles, you’re just emoting with a ballot. My overriding principle is every human being is sovereign unto himself — his own nation, his own kingdom. As sovereign, an adult has the right to speak, worship, own property, defend himself, associate with other sovereigns or tell them to get off his lawn. He also owns his own body. That includes the right to tattoo it, pierce it, poison it with gas-station sushi or surgically alter it. Other people may consider those choices foolish or grotesque, but it isn’t their body and not their business. Government’s proper job, with very limited exceptions, is to protect individual liberty, not coerce people for their own good. Which, naturally, brings us to seat belts (yeah, I know, but stay with me). I despise mandatory seat belt laws for adults. There is something inconsistent about screaming “my body, my choice” on one issue and then demanding other people’s bodies be strapped down against their will. If an adult wishes to meet his windshield at 80 mph, that is between him and the laws of physics. Further, as a supporter of Darwinism, I don’t want to keep stupid people in the gene pool longer than need be. Seat belt laws do that (note that the Kardashians were not a thing before seat belt laws. Coincidence?). Kids are differentBut I strongly support seat belt laws for children. Infants cannot buckle themselves in. Nor do children naturally yearn to be strapped into place. Why be strapped down when you can run around the car hitting your little sister, playing the “I’m not touching you” game while dodging your mother’s hand as she tries to slap you? Parents should decide what risks their children may take. But no one should put children in danger, even if it’s the parents. Leaving a toddler in the trunk of a speeding car is not an unconventional parenting philosophy. It is child endangerment. Our Declaration of Independence asserts government must protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, protect a child’s life until he’s old enough to have the liberty to pursue his happiness, which may include removing healthy body parts. The case for yesThat brings us back to Proposition 135. It does not prohibit puberty blockers or hormone treatments. It draws its line at the permanent removal of body tissue. That distinction matters. I run Independence Institute. We’ve spent 40 years fighting for parental rights in education. Parents, not bureaucrats, should decide how their children are taught. Shouldn’t parents also have the final say over their children’s medical care? Almost always, yes. Parents may choose a lousy school. They may feed a child an appalling diet. They may inflict violin lessons, youth soccer and matching family Christmas sweaters. Those decisions can shape a child’s life, but they do not permanently remove healthy body parts. A terrible education can be overcome through work and discipline. A disastrous haircut eventually grows out. Piercings close. Even tattoos can be removed. Amputated tissue does not grow back. Children are not miniature adults. We do not let them sign contracts, buy whiskey, smoke cigarettes or get a tattoo merely because they insist they have given the matter considerable thought. We recognize that adolescence is temporary, judgment is developing and some decisions cannot be recalled once made. An adult possesses bodily autonomy. A child possesses bodily integrity. That difference is the heart of Proposition 135. Parents must have broad authority to raise their children according to their own values. Government is a miserable substitute for a mother or father. But parents don’t have the right to place a child in needless physical danger, be it by not belting them in the car or cutting away organs because a young person may be struggling to understand his or her identity. I’m voting yes on Proposition 135. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver

  3. Sep 18

    Colorado Tax Bracket Creep

    On TABOR Talk we discuss how Colorado Legislators are trying to get you to give up your TABOR refunds forever. Will you let them have it?

  4. Sep 16

    Amendment 87: How the Broncos play into Colorado’s tax fight

    Do you want the Broncos to win the Super Bowl? Then you’d better hope Amendment 87, which brings back Colorado’s economy-strangling “graduated” income tax, loses at the ballot box this fall. Seriously. Forget Republicans and Democrats. Forget tax policy. This is about Xs and Os, and whether Denver can afford the players who execute them and win a Super Bowl. The Manning effectEvery successful business has star employees: rare talents without whom the enterprise simply doesn’t work. Same goes for an NFL franchise. Every business has star employees the whole operation is built around. Sometimes that star is the chief executive. No Henry Ford, no assembly line, no affordable car. No Steve Jobs, no iPhone, foldable or otherwise. No Elon, and Teslas are just golf carts with better marketing. But more often, the star isn’t the person running the place, it’s the person the CEO had the sense to hire. A smart CEO understands paying extraordinary people extraordinary salaries is sometimes the price of success. Competent employees may be plentiful. Franchise-changing talent is not. The chemist in the lab who sees the molecule nobody else does. The closer on the sales team. The reporter whose byline wins the Pulitzer. The performer who actually fills the arena. Any company can hire a receptionist. Few can hire star employees. A smart CEO knows you pay that person absurdly well, because the alternative is watching him walk across the street or across the state border to your competitor. Football works exactly the same way. A head coach’s most consequential decisions aren’t play calls, they’re personnel calls. In 2012, the Broncos handed Peyton Manning roughly $20 million a year to be their star employee (adjusted for inflation, that’s pushing $40 million today). Did it work out? Ask the Lombardi Trophy sitting in the team’s front office. Manning was worth every nickel. The Amendment 87 pay cutBut like any CEO, a head coach doesn’t have infinite money. He’s stuck with a salary cap, competing against 31 other teams for the same shrinking pool of ridiculously overpaid talent. Enter Amendment 87, which offers most of us a token tax cut while nearly doubling the rate on those evil, hated rich people we call Denver Broncos. If it passes this fall, every Bronco currently taxed at Colorado’s flat 4.4% starts paying 8.4%. Football players take a lot of hits to the head, but their accountants don’t, and unlike our legislators, accountants (and even concussed football players) can do arithmetic. All else equal, a player has to earn 8.4% more to play in Denver than to play somewhere with no state income tax at all. Any player who plays for the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans, Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans or the Seattle Seahawks gets an instant 8.4% raise compared to playing for Denver under Amendment 87. Run Peyton Manning’s numbers again: at $20 million a year, that 8.4% is $1.68 million a year , $8.4 million over a five-year deal. Double those figures to adjust for inflation, and you’re talking real money even by NFL standards. Sure, plenty of things factor into where a star chemist, programmer, performer or quarterback decides to live and work. But an 8.4% pay cut isn’t a rounding error. It’s the kind of number that ends up circled on a napkin in some agent’s office come free agency. Not that it matters, but it’s not just football teams competing for star talent. Every Colorado business is as well. The relocation incentiveIf Colorado wants to be a tech magnet for the upcoming quantum revolution, companies will be competing for quantum specialists. I don’t know how many of those you know, I don’t know any. What goes for the quantum tech field and the football field goes for every industry. A company can give those superstar employees an immediate 8.5% pay increase by relocating to a no-income-tax state. That’s why so many companies are relocating out of California, Illinois, New York and now Colorado for places like Florida and Texas. Just ask the well-paid people who used to work at Palantir in Denver. Amendment 87 makes the Denver Broncos’ problem every business’s problem. But let’s keep it to football. The ballot language for Amendment 87 should actually read: “Shall the Denver Broncos have 8.4% less money to spend on player talent than other teams in the NFL?” Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  5. Sep 15

    Fundamental Political Differences Between Left and Right

    Ayn Rand recommended a technique for understanding, if not resolving, irreconcilable differences of opinion: “First, check your premises.” It’s pointless to argue with someone when your basic assumptions and goals are unalterably different. In politics these aren’t discussions, they’re unproductive exercises in rhetoric, gamesmanship and grandstanding ,at least on one side. Imagine an argument on economics between Milton Friedman and Bernie Sanders. A profound illustration of this concept was provided by James Burnham in his classic book, “Suicide of the West,” published in 1964. It addressed the fundamental conflict in world view and the order of values between those on the ideological left and right. It’s just as insightful today. Burnham defined four key values: Liberty – National independence, self-government, and sovereignty. Freedom – In the sense of individual liberty. Justice – In the sense of a “social justice” welfare state with where egalitarianism means equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Peace – The absence of large-scale warfare among major powers. He observed that most people believe in all of these values to one extent or another but are often forced to make choices when one value conflicts with another and when prioritizing these values in order of relative importance. For example, would you jeopardize peace to defend liberty? Or override individual freedom to achieve social justice? This is an approximation of Burnham’s forced-ranking as applied to today’s political divide. Right (conservatives) Left (progressives) Liberty Peace Freedom Justice Peace Freedom Justice Liberty Conservatives and progressivesOur founders crafted the Constitution and its Bill of Rights with particular attention to limiting government and safeguarding the natural rights of individuals. The conservative order of values reflects a traditional view of human nature and society. It recognizes that the world is often a harsh and competitive place populated by imperfect — and imperfectible — beings and that there are limits to what public or private institutions can do to mitigate this condition. Conservatives believe our constitutional republic and private enterprise economy have produced the greatest measure of political freedom and economic achievement the world has ever known and that it is perpetually threatened by serious adversaries both foreign and domestic. War is a constant of human history and always will be, and peace through military strength is the best deterrent. Today’s progressives have elevated pacifism to a principal value. Their economic vision is a socialist welfare state enroute to a communist utopia, and they share the Marxian delusion that human nature can be changed and perfected. They believe our Constitution is fatally flawed. They’d open our borders and join a world government body (imagine a largely anti-American UN with muscle). They believe disarmament is achievable, and that war can be eliminated. (Woody Allen once humorously prophesied, “The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.) In the 1960s, Burnham noted that leftists are infected with the promise of communism simply because they share so many of its ideals such as peace, egalitarianism, secularism, collectivism, full employment, and free social services. To wishful thinkers, useful idiots, and fellow travelers, the constitution of the Soviet Union sounded better than our own. But it was all a pack of lies and its promises were never delivered. (Correction: They did impose full employment for political dissidents in their forced-labor concentration camps like its Siberian Gulag Archipelago.) The soviets needed border guards to keep their people in. That’s why communist East Berlin built a wall to keep its subjects from escaping to West Berlin. Similar conditions prevail in today’s communist paradises of Cuba, North Korea and China. Socialism and its inevitable destination, communism, have been notorious failures. America and other nations in the free world have mixed-economies based on private enterprise, free-market forces, and personal property rights paired with a cornucopia of welfare-state entitlements that resemble socialism. Progressives defensively claim that Scandinavian societies are models of successful socialism. Not quite. Leaders of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark assert they’re economies are not strictly socialist. True, all have expansive welfare states with high taxes and some state-owned businesses, but they still have mostly private-enterprise economies and personal property rights. That may work for them as nations of relatively small land mass, low populations of only 5 to 10 million people, and a homogenous culture. But it’s not a suitable model for the USA with 350 million people of diverse cultures spread across a vast continent, and geopolitical interests and treaty obligations around the globe as the leader and principal defender of the free world. Compared to America; Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are more like neighborhoods. Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.

  6. Sep 9

    The Perpetual Tax Hike Hidden in Colorado’s Amendment 87

    “Youth is wasted on all the wrong people.” That’s one of my favorite lines from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The older I get, the less it sounds like a joke. Every generation inherits victories it did not win. Young Americans never experienced the Cold War, the draft or stagflation. Double-digit inflation is something grandpa now mentions in one of his rambling monologues about how good we have it. The young don’t remember bracket creep because why would they? They never, ever experienced it. A previous generation defeated it for them. The yearly tax hikeThough it sounds like a medical condition, bracket creep was one of government’s most sinister ways of raising taxes without voting to raise taxes. Inflation pushed wages upward — even when purchasing power went down. Because federal tax brackets remained fixed, workers were steadily pushed into higher tax rates without actually becoming any richer. Your paycheck got bigger but so did your grocery, utility, insurance and every other bill. Your standard of living stayed put at best. Washington congratulated you on becoming “richer” and sent a larger tax bill. It was a yearly tax increase. Was. In the early 1980s, Colorado U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong, then on the Senate Finance Committee, led the fight to end it. Federal income tax brackets became indexed to inflation. Now when your income rises with the cost of living, you’re not pushed into a higher tax bracket. Government no longer profits by confusing more dollars with more wealth. Colorado attacked it another way. In 1987, Democratic Gov. Roy Romer signed legislation replacing the state’s graduated income tax with a flat rate and put the state into economic overdrive. This year’s Amendment 87 would put the transmission in reverse. The measure would replace Colorado’s flat income tax with six progressive tax brackets. Its sales pitch is politically irresistible: You get a modest tax cut, and somebody richer pays for it. Under the proposal, if you make less than $100,000 a year you get a tiny tax cut (for now). From $100,000 to $500,000 nothing really changes. But when you make more than that your tax rate skyrockets to almost double. Higher tax brackets awaitThe most dangerous defect is what Amendment 87 leaves out: Its tax brackets are not indexed to inflation. It truly takes you back in time, back when inflation pushed you into higher brackets while your buying power went down. What proponents are counting on is you won’t understand at some point you will be in the “tax them more” brackets. Not that you’ll actually be richer. It’s just what inflation does. Making $25,000 in 1980 is the same as making $100,000 today. Put differently (drumroll, please), SOONER OR LATER EVERYONE IN COLORADO WILL BE PAYING AN 8.4% INCOME TAX. It’s only a matter of when. In the Marvel movies Thanos was “inevitable.” This proposal is Thanos. It is inevitable everyone will be paying the top rate as inflation pushes people’s salaries higher. Fewer and fewer people every year will be in the lower, “tax cut” brackets. Because it’s not indexed to inflation, eventually we will all creep into the higher tax brackets. No legislator must introduce a bill. No governor must sign one. No campaign committee must explain it. Inflation does the dirty work while politicians pose for pictures with schoolchildren. That is bracket creep. We got rid of it federally because Americans learned the lesson the expensive way when inflation ravaged the 1970s. Amendment 87 asks you to forget it. Tax escalatorLet me spell it out as clearly as I can: Amendment 87 only temporarily replaces a flat income tax rate with a graduated one. Ultimately, we all creep into the 8.4% tax bracket. And we’ll effectively have a flat tax again. Like Thanos, it is inevitable. Supporters say taxing the wealthy is only fair. Take a moment to consider how not indexing it for inflation makes that argument a lie. If proponents believe their brackets are fair today, in 2026, why are they unwilling to keep those brackets fair tomorrow by indexing those brackets to inflation? They know damn well that over time every Coloradan will be in higher and higher tax brackets. What they claim is fair today must, by their own reasoning, become unfair tomorrow. Colorado once understood that tax systems should not punish people for inflation. Now Amendment 87 invites us to trade that hard-fought inheritance for a tiny check today and an automatic tax escalator tomorrow. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  7. Sep 2

    The Myth of the American Oligarchy

    Who’d have believed that Bernie Sanders, a ranting disheveled old man could rise to become the modern-day reincarnation of Vladimir Lenin, with a Brooklyn accent, evangelizing for socialism in the USA and building a legion of useful idiots? (Clue: Bernie and his wife honeymooned in the Soviet Union.) He’s certainly not charismatic. So, he shrewdly recruited AOC as his partner, a weird May-December relationship, for a road show last winter called the “Fighting Oligarchy Tour.” Bernie’s schtick is throwing around a barrage of angry, demagogic, simplistic, exaggerated, inflammatory slogans to rile up gullible malcontents. The slogan for this tour was that America has become an “oligarchy.” Let’s start with the definition of that term. Oligarchy: noun, a form of government in which the ruling power belongs to a small wealthy group that controls the economy and makes laws and political decisions to preserve its own power. Myth of the oligarchyReally? Who are the members of this oligarchy of wizards that possess the superpower to run our government, our military, our foreign policy, and our intricate economy with literally millions of businesses large and small? No such thing exists. This is a contrived fantasy to fuel Bernie’s socialist crusade. Ironically, such an oligarchy is more likely to be found in totalitarian socialist states where opposition political parties are banned and the only names on ballots in their mock elections are members of the official Communist party. Such states control every facet of your life with an iron grip like the former Union of Soviet “Socialist” Republics, Cuba, North Korea, China — or Iran’s theocracy of ayatollahs. The American republic’s system of government with its separation of powers, checks and balances, and its highly competitive free market economy is too complex and independent to be ruled by a small cabal of evil billionaires. If this imaginary oligarchy controls the federal government, why did it bounce back and forth through a procession of presidents with wildly different political agendas from 2000 – 2024: Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump (again)? Or did the “oligarchy” only emerge in 2024 with Trump’s reelection? And what secret power does it have over him, the Republican majority in Congress, and conservative justices on the Supreme Court? How do the oligarchs manipulate state governments with big cities nominally run by Democrats? And what power does it have over rural America that favors Republicans? Bernie used to attack millionaires. Now that he’s one himself, he’s shifted his wrath to billionaires (adjusting for inflation, they were called millionaires in the 19th century). But today’s billionaires can’t be an all-powerful oligarchy because they’re not monolithic and have differing beliefs and political agendas. Elon Musk is a conservative who sides with Donald Trump (they’ve hugged and made up). George Soros funds countless causes on the radical left (so he’s immune to criticism form Bernie and AOC). The Koch brothers are libertarian. A host of billionaires that favor Democrats and lean left includes Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffet, and Laurene Powell Jobs (yeah, the widow of Steve, the guy who created Apple). All these folks can’t be on the same team. By definition, oligarchs are unified. Capitalism benefits allBillionaires have a lot of influence but they don’t have a monopoly on that. So do people with low or no income that are the Democrats’ core voting constituency. Other powerful influencers include labor unions (especially the teacher unions), academia, public education, the press and TV broadcast media (mostly leftist), social media and podcasters. Bernie claims “capitalism in the U.S. benefits only a few.” A “few?” Like what, 3 or four people out of 340 million? Be serious. Americans enjoy the highest standard of living in the world directly derived from our capitalist economy. Those who excel, like successful entrepreneurs and CEOs, professional athletes, inventors, actors and Taylor Swift make a fortune, generously donate to causes and foundations, and pay a lot in taxes. Most Americans are somewhere in the middle, and those on the bottom are supported by countless social welfare programs at the federal, state and local level. Capitalism has certainly benefited Bernie, a man with little marketable talent who somehow became a millionaire. But wait; he’s never had a real job in the capitalist private sector. It’s all been in politics and government office at taxpayer expense derived from our capitalist economy. Bernie claims, “A handful of billionaires have more wealth than they could spend in a thousand years.” If he had any understanding of economics, which he doesn’t, he’d know that most of it is invested. Capital formation is the lifeblood of any economic system. What they spend is none of his business, they earned it.

  8. Aug 26

    Tax Increase for Basically Everyone in Colorado

    On TABOR Talk we discuss how Colorado Legislators are trying to get you to give up your TABOR refunds forever. Will you let them have it?

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About

Did you know 46% of the voters in Colorado are unaffiliated? Have you ever wondered why? Hear from the experts at Independence Institute talk about the issues important to Colorado and how to bring some sanity to this increasingly leftist state.

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  • Creator
    Independence Institute
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    210
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Independence Institute
  • Show Website
    Freedom Unaffiliated