Decent Analysis by Denver Post on State's Budget Woes

The Denver Post published an article this weekend that has a surprisingly balanced analysis of the deep financial hole the state of Colorado has dug itself.

This is a bit surprising since the Post has been fairly relentlessly in favor of almost all of the governor and Legislature's spending initiatives. There is even some allusion in the piece that TABOR may have acted as a clear brake on state spending in a way that prevented a much deeper fiscal crisis. You can read the article by clicking on this post.

What should be clear, is that this state, like the federal government, has been on a spending spree that many with cooler heads had warned against over the last three years.

A large portion of the problem comes from the economic forecasts of the state itself. It's not just that they have a hard time estimating how much things will end up costing, which we all know is a continuing problem with government since it has our pockets to reach into instead of its own, but their understanding of ordinary citizens response to economic problems is usually cockeyed.

Those in government have positions that are hard to lose and as such never quite understand the heightened level of concern that the average person has over losing their job and never seem to be able to anticipate a quick cut back the average person will make in their spending when they feel like job cutbacks or layoffs might be in the offing.

As we can see, it takes a fairly massive problem before government begins to lose employees so their response to economic stress is usually less pronounced and they inevitably miss the mark on the depth and swiftness of consumer response.

They also have a tendency to beat the drums sometimes even louder than necessary as a way to alarm the voting public so they might be stampeded towards programs, spending or tax increases- and then they wonder why the consumer is afraid and cuts back more than they anticipated.