You know how people would camp outside the Apple store for days to buy the latest iPhone, or way back in the day when kids would do the same to get concert tickets. Well, we have the same thing here at Independence Institute. 

 

For days now, about 100 people have lined up patiently waiting outside the front doors to our headquarters, the Freedom Embassy. As I’m sure you have seen in all the news coverage, they are all waiting for the release of this year’s Independence Institute Voter’s Guide.

 

Well, the anticipation is over. We have released our voter guide! (We, um, then found out the people camping in front of our building were just homeless people the mayor had relocated here. But they loved the voter guide anyway).

 

While we are all captivated by the presidential election, I should remind you that state and local elections might have a bigger impact on your daily life. This year's Colorado ballot will be a long and confusing one with a record-tying 14 statewide questions. Some of these ballot questions were referred by the state legislature, some by the citizen’s initiative process, all of them are important.

 

Independence Institute has again put together a voter guide to help citizens wade through the ballot. This year's issues were particularly tricky given that many so questions were well-intentioned but poorly written. So, it's important you read our short analysis of each ballot issue. While passions drive elections, the wording of laws drive policy. 

 

You might have reasonable disagreements with some of our recommendations, but I think this voter guide is the perfect starting place as you weigh these important issues.

 

We also looked at a handful of local ballot issues we believe are of particular importance. And before you ask, no, we don't make endorsements on candidate elections. As a 501(c)3 charitable organization we must stay out of partisan elections. 

 

I hope you find it useful and please feel free to share it far and wide. Here’s the online version and the printable version. 


A goodbye: 


As if our political scene isn't sad enough, Colorado has lost one of the great leaders in the free market movement. For over four decades, Buz Koelbel’s real estate developments have brought offices and homes to the people of Colorado. But I know Buzz as a friend who has always offered his time, talents, and treasure to principled causes around the state. 

 

More than just a philanthropist, Buz (I never remember anyone calling him “Walter”) gave his wisdom and resources to make Colorado a freer, more prosperous land of opportunity. His death from blood cancer came decades too soon. Our hearts go out to his family, and frankly the whole state, over this loss.

 

Why are we stuck in traffic? In my latest column below, I try to prove it’s because funding meant for the roads we all use is instead used for transit which very few people use.

 

And if you are not sleeping in on Saturday mornings, tune your radio to 710 KNUS from 7 A.M. to 9 A.M.

In Complete Colorado, Editor Mike Krause has a piece on another local government opting out of the “sensitive spaces” gun ban.


Columnist Ari Armstrong writes about a CU professor who goes progressive myth busting.


Lastly, Randal O’Toole urges readers to not reward RTD’s failure.

Tonight on PBS channel 12 at 8:30 P.M., I sit down with Kent Thiry to discuss his attempt to make ranked-choice voting the law of the land in Colorado.


On YouTube, I spoke with Ava Flanell, who is a firearms enthusiast, a firearms trainer, and now a firearms podcast and videocast star. She believes gun owners do a lousy job presenting their side to people who don't own guns.

Energy blackouts in Colorado are happening more frequently, but why? PowerGab Hosts Jake Fogleman and Amy Cooke discuss the deeper reasons why Colorado's energy reliability isn't just a question of power.

Central planners disregard Coloradans’ true mobility needs

By Jon Caldara

Tired of all the traffic? Tough. The central planners in charge command it only get worse at an exponential rate.


The reason our roads suck is money that could fix and expand them goes to transit which relatively no one uses. U.S. Census data shows only 4% of Denver’s commuting population uses transit.


Remember that number — 4%.


Yet, in the Denver metro area, almost all “transportation” dollars go to transit. The Regional Transportation District’s (RTD) failed FasTracks scam spent more than $7 billion at a time when all the highway needs statewide were around $9 billion. We could have fulfilled nearly all of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) wish list for the entire state with what we spent on one choo-choo train boondoggle.


Next time you’re stuck in traffic, don’t get angry at the car in front of you. Get angry at the rarely used railroad tracks next to you. That’s where your road money went.


Central planners are wed to the three-century-old technology of trains for one simple reason: empire building. No one can compete with them on tracks no one else can use. Monopoly never goes out of style.


RTD just released a study on its stillborn train line from Longmont to Denver, promised since 2004. Their conclusion? It cannot be done unless voters are conned into more taxes, likely in the form of the “Front Range Train” system.

This means taxpayers would have to pay three times to fulfill RTD’s single promise of train tracks.


Most of us still remember RTD’s 2004 pledge of FasTracks being completed by 2017, and at half the current price. They don’t want us to remember that. This traumatic memory of theft will be the major obstacle in their quest to soak us for a Front Range rail system from Fort Collins to Pueblo.


So, expect a flurry of lip service about making the Longmont-Denver line a reality soon. How soon? Real soon, trust us, just approve this tax for a statewide system.


And what will Longmont get? Nothing close to what they were promised. According to RTD’s recent report, the best they can do would be to send three little one-way trains down to Denver in the morning and the same three back to Longmont in the evening carrying a mere one-tenth of what they promised in 2004.


You notice I said this would be the third promise to build out a system. Like Holocaust deniers, RTD and their cronies pretend the 1971 tax increase that committed to build 128 miles of rail by 1980 never existed. And bless the media for keeping it hidden.


Yes, you are still paying for that 1971 promise, a half-cent-a-dollar sales tax (which was to be cut in half in 1980 but wasn’t) and later increased to six-tenths of a cent. Add to that the 2004 Fastracks increase to a full penny per dollar, and you get one of the well-funded transit agencies in the nation.


But it’s even worse. Much worse. To “cut greenhouse gas emissions,” Colorado’s Department of Transportation is planning to suck even more money out of your roads to shower on transit people mostly don’t ride.


In an August 2021 rulemaking memo, CDOT says, “it is estimated that between a quarter and a third of resources will need to be shifted towards transportation projects that have air quality mitigation benefits — as well as other societal co-benefits — in order to achieve the targets set in the rule.”


CDOT plans to siphon 28% of the state’s road funding to multi-modal transport (read choo-choo trains and bike paths) by 2031.


So, the goal is to have a third of our road money stolen for transit that carries, at most, 4% of commuters. This isn’t bad policy. This is mobility malfeasance.

Of course, if we really cared about air quality, we would work on getting cars moving since stop-and-go traffic produces the most air pollution.


May I suggest a different guiding principle altogether. Every marginal transportation dollar must go to the project that reduces auto traffic the most. That’s it. Judge every dollar spent on how much it cuts car traffic.


If using 200-year-old train technology or a bike path reduces traffic more than new toll lanes or general-purpose lanes, then go for it. If not, stop robbing us for unicorn projects and stop robbing our time in traffic jams.