How To Sign Colorado Banking Word

Industry sign banking colorado medical history fast

this morning thank you so much for joining us and welcome to our fourth and final eggs in the economy of 2019 my name is Kristen Strom I serve as president and CEO of common-sense policy Roundtable for those of you who haven't joined us prior and I do see a lot of familiar faces eggs and the economies are quarterly gathering gathering to learn about different policy issues that are critical to issues facing Colorado the goal is to bring people together of different perspectives to talk listen occasionally disagree and of course to eat eggs so hopefully you all get some if everything goes according to plan we'll all walk out of here a little more educated to at CSP our we believe strongly in the need for civility open dialogue and conversation driven by facts we believe sound fiscal and economic research is essential to uphold Colorado's economic vitality future and individual opportunity and we also believe it's important for Republicans Democrats and the rest of us to break bread occasionally so for all of those legislators and elected officials in attendance today if you could please stand thank you so much for your service and for being here so before we get to the program I'd like to introduce CSP heirs board of directors if those here today could please stand and be recognized our board is comprised of some remarkable individuals they're bright committed and they all care about Colorado in the truest sense it's an honor to work alongside of this terrific group of people I'd also like to thank our leader Circle and free enterprise champion members in the room today we value your membership and without your generous support we'd not be able to conduct the sound research so important to moving policy dialogue in our state so we're operating on a pretty tight schedule today we have a lot of great presentations and speakers to hear from so we're gonna be limiting Q&A at the end of each speaker to roughly five to ten minutes if we don't get to your question though I'm sure that the speakers will be able to stay afterwards so to get to the program I'd like to start off by introducing our first speaker today CSP our energy resources fellow Simon Lomax Simon has spent more than 20 years working in journalism government and public affairs he started as a research assistant at the Queensland Department of Transportation in Brisbane Australia he later became a journalist reporting for newspapers trade publications and financial news fires in Australia the deep south and in Washington DC in 2006 in 2007 Simon was a congressional fellow with the American Political Science Association which sent him to Capitol Hill to work on climate change legislation after the APSA fellowship he covered energy and climate policy for Argus Media Bloomberg News during the first term of the Obama administration he became a US citizen in 2008 and changed careers in 2012 leaving the newsroom to work in public affairs since 2012 Simon has worked with think-tanks trade associations and business groups to advocate for limited government free enterprise approaches to public policy please help me welcome Simon [Applause] Thank You Kristen and thank you everyone for joining us this morning first of all I would be remiss if I didn't thank co-author on this report Chris Brown you may have heard of him and he'll be speaking a little bit later and likewise I'm very grateful to Kristen to the CSP R to the CSP our board and to all of the supporters of the work of this free enterprise think tank as someone who became a US citizen at the age of 30 I can say without reservation that the American system of free enterprise is very special and it's not something that should be taken for granted when we think about the benefits of free enterprise a lot of things sort of naturally spring to mind jobs economic opportunity technological innovation competitive markets and consumer choice but another benefit of the free enterprise system that kind of flies under the radar is the the tax revenue that's generated by workers and business owners and investors in the private economy and whether you'd like to see more government spending or less higher taxes or lower taxes I think it's important that we all remember where tax revenue comes from in the first place and that's the free enterprise system and the private economic activity that it makes possible now how new report on oil and gas development is focused on property taxes but before diving into the findings I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the importance of property taxes because even though property taxes play a major fiscal role in our nation their importance is often overlooked so nationwide local and state governments collect more than 500 billion dollars in property taxes every year and for scale that's about twice the amount collected by the federal government in Medicare payroll taxes this graph on the right of the slide comes from the Urban Institute and what the Urban Institute did was take all of the state and local revenue that's collected nationwide and compared it and compared the totals to one another and property taxes is the yellow column on the left-hand side of the graph and it's bigger than general sales taxes bigger than selective sales taxes it's bigger than state income taxes and it's bigger even than the charges and fees that often serve the same role as taxes these days and finally here in Colorado every year local governments collect about nine billion dollars in tax revenue which is more than the state's individual and corporate income tax revenues combined which brings us to our new report local rep the local revenue impacts of near-term oil and gas development historically most of the research about oil and gas development in Colorado has been statewide in nature and so that's not left very much information at the local level for local officials and local stakeholders to use and to following the Senate following a passage of Senate bill 181 however local governments now have an expanded role in making regulatory and permitting decisions about siting new oil and gas production facilities and so this report is a first step toward better understanding the local contributions of oil and gas development so that permitting and and regulatory decisions under SB 181 can be fully informed by the facts and those facts include property tax revenues which in Colorado we use to support a wide range of essential public services so to explore this kind of general proposition we looked at five cities and towns along the Front Range aurora broomfield commerce city erie in Johnstown and using publicly available information including approved local operator agreements and state location assessments and other regulatory filings we developed two scenarios for near-term oil and gas development across these five local jurisdictions I would encourage you to take a look at the full study because we spent a lot of time explaining the steps that we took to develop these estimates across these two scenarios but here's a quick overview of the steps that we took first we identified more than 70 locations where oil and gas production facilities are likely to be developed in the near term to be sure this is not intended to be an upper or lower limit on the amount of future oil and gas development that's planned for any given area but the regulatory we docket the regulatory documents that we reviewed are very strong indicator of the amount of new oil and gas development that is planned for the near term second we examined recent production data from the DJ basin to estimate how much oil and gas these new facilities may produce over their first 10 years of operation third we estimated the total value of this oil and gas and fourth we applied the relevant property tax formulas to these values before we get to the findings is something that we need to cover very quickly but is absolutely critical when you're looking at this issue and that is the tax assessment rate for oil and gas now in Colorado the assessment rate for all classes of property determines how much of a property's actual value will be subject to local mill levels currently the tax assessment rate for residential property in Colorado is seven point one five percent the commercial property it's twenty nine percent but for oil and gas it's eighty seven point five percent effectively this means the property tax rate for oil and gas in Colorado is three times higher than commercial property and twelve times higher than residential property and this higher effective tax rate had a huge impact on our findings in the two scenarios we examined we found between one point three nine and 1.85 billion dollars in new property taxes in the five cities and towns we looked at over the ten-year period these revenues would support a wide range of local services provided by cities and towns counties and special districts we're talking about public education road construction police and fire departments water ins water and sanitation infrastructure parks and recreation services among others in the table on the right of this slide you can see the property tax totals from near-term oil and gas development broken out by each of the cities we studied but we also provided more detailed estimates about where this property tax revenue would go because as you know property tax bills are divided between municipalities counties public schools and others other special districts and as we examined these numbers one big trend became clear right away across all five cities and towns and that was most of the new property tax revenue was earmarked for just one purpose K through 12 education according to our estimates the school districts that serve these five communities could receive between 822 million to 1.1 billion dollars over ten years now to put those numbers in context we turn this ten year total into an annual average and then we compared that annual average to per pupil spending and average teacher salaries here's what we found with this amount of revenue you could give teachers in those districts a raise of between 31 and 42 percent roughly 18,000 to $24,000 per year or you could hire something in the neighborhood of 2,400 to 3,200 new teachers either way you could increase classroom spending by about five hundred and sixty to seven hundred and fifty dollars per pupil now we we did the same kind of size and scope exercise for cities and towns as well and in this setting near-term oil and gas development could generate between 194 million and 258 million dollars in new property tax revenues over ten years that is enough money to perform substantial repairs on the local road network you could grind down and resurface 600 to 800 miles of Lane miles of local roads with brand new asphalt overlay for example and for scale 600 miles to 800 miles is roughly twice the length of the state of Colorado I should note that this example only applies to municipal roads it's quite possible that county governments which could themselves received more than 200 million dollars in new revenue over ten years would use this money for infrastructure improvements as well before concluding though I want to be clear that these size and scope exercises they're not policy recommendations we didn't produce this study to recommend staffing levels for school districts or spending priorities for local governments we're not saying how these revenues should be spent [Applause] instead we're trying to convey the magnitude of these revenues to make them more tangible and less abstract as a recovering journalist one of the things that my editors would always say in the newsroom was show don't tell and that's our attempt to show rather than tell how significant these revenues might be in a local setting we understand that local officials have a difficult task juggling many different budget priorities with finite resources and so all these findings suggest if anything is that growing the local tax base is one way to make those budget decisions a little easier so in conclusion some closing thoughts to be sure this analysis is not intended to provide the final word on the local economic contributions of oil and gas in Colorado and it doesn't attempt to predict oil and gas related property taxes down to the last dollar and sank over a period of 10 years rather it has a more realistic goal that's communicating the potential size and scope of these potential revenue streams at the local level because these fiscal considerations are important and unfortunately they are not immediately obvious to some policymakers and some members of the part of the public and as a result today they've been largely overlooked so this analysis takes a step toward correcting this oversight and ensuring that the implementation of Senate bill 181 both locally and at the state level is fully informed by the facts so thank you for your time and for your interest in our work if there are any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them here or offline at the end of our program depending on how we're doing on time I think we have time for a few questions [Applause] so scenario 1 and scenario 2 basically the difference is the assumes the assumed well count between basically how many wells would be located on the 70 plus sites that we looked at and we basically have scenario 1 runs at about 800 Wells across those 70 locations and scenario 2 assumes about 1,100 wells there's a rough numbers we have the the detailed figures in the report itself but it basically reflects that in some cases there are locations that have been determined for a future oil and gas development that well counts haven't been developed for those sites yet and so we wanted to account for some of the back and forth and and flexibility that that may play out especially as your local governments and state regulators and operators kind of work together to find the the right fit in terms of well counts for for these locations does that make sense you mean in in oil and gas I think it's I think it's both I think it's a combination of both I joke I really do think it's I think it's both I think if you want to sort of if you're tracking this issue going forward I think probably the best way to determine how much of it is market and how much of it is regular is regulation is to look at permitting trends and especially rig counts in Colorado compared to other states and that will probably give you some indication as to how much of this how much of the trends are being driven by what's happening at the state capitol what's happening at the CR GCC what's happening at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment what's happening at the local level because so much of the implementation of Senate bill 181 has still to be determined not just at the state level but also at the local level but if you were to look at permitting and rig count trends in other states and then look at Colorado and how it compares that would probably be a useful clue to answer your question okay that's time for one more question anyone anyone that's good question had that didn't factor into our selection of these locations so much as they were really interesting cross-section of different communities that are along the Front Range that are in the DJ basin but they're very different sizes and also I guess the one thing that they all needed to have in common in order to be selected was that there were actual plans for Nia to oil and gas development you know on the horizon so that really was what drove the selection and I'm glad you asked that question because I also want to be sure that you know that this is not an exhaustive list of the municipalities where oil and gas development is planned in the DJ basin but the purpose of this of this white paper or this report really was to illustrate what some of the the tax contributions and some of the the fiscal impacts could be when local communities are considering oil and gas development proposes okay all right Kristin says it's alright see that's a good question that was I guess outside the scope of our our paper um but I would I would say if you look at I'm gonna lean a little bit on my past experience as an electricity markets reporter and oil and natural gas markets I think if you look at the ut lization rate of electric vehicles both historical and what's projected if oil and gas is still going to be a major mainstay in the transportation sector for a long time to come whether you're talking about oil that is refined into fuels that go into container combustion engines or if you talk about the electricity itself that goes into electric vehicles that electricity comes from somewhere and actually a lot of it comes from natural gas-fired power plants so I don't see it as you know something that's going to you know as something that's going to diminish oil and gas in the near term just my opinion [Applause] so now it's my pleasure to introduce a familiar face a CSP our director of policy and research Chris Brown today excitingly for the third year in a row CSP R is going to release our budget than and now report it offers a comprehensive view of how spending by the state has grown and changed over the past two decades the study presents a big-picture view of how spending by the state of Colorado has changed and in a fun way - so Chris welcome and we look forward to hearing about the study like Kristin Thank You Simon and welcome to all of you for joining us again yeah so as Kristin pointed out this is our third year releasing the budget then and now which again presents a high level snapshot of our state's spending priorities so you know ultimately you know budgeting is about priorities and so as we look to the legislative session we know that the discussion will get very detailed weedy and very siloed but we hope that again this can present a little bit of perspective on where the state is currently and where it's been so during the last legislative session the state legislature appropriated approved about just over thirty point four billion dollars in total state appropriations for the current fiscal year which runs from July of this year through the end of June next year and so this is what we'll be looking at we'll be looking at a snapshot from 2000 through our current budget cycle there's a lot of ways to slice this information there's a lot of ways that this type of data gets presented and so we wanted to show expenditure spending by departments you've seen it sliced maybe on where it's collected sort of at the source sliced it by revenue by income taxes sales taxes if you followed the debate around proposition CC you may have been focused on Appropriations the fund level because that's very relevant here in Colorado as we under Tabor that's where various restrictions are imposed on different funds just for a little bit of context you know when Tabor was passed in 1994 about 54% of state appropriations were subject to the table spending limit as one of those areas particularly cash funds through enterprises has has grown less than a third or specific about 28% of total appropriations you'll be seeing today are subject to the Tabor spending limits so this is the one of the chart the animations that we produced along with the report I'd encourage you to go to our website and take a look at how this plays out but I wanted to show this to you today so that we could take a look and see how spending has changed over again from 2000 through 2020 so apologize for some of the small texts but I did include colors so maybe you can just follow the colors just to kind of orient you with what you're looking at the each each bar is a state department at the top you have education and health care higher education Human Services in 2020 the top five state department's but equaled about 75% of total state spending now that makes sense those agencies are the ones that are tasked with really spending money they're in spending on roads spending on schools teachers buildings health care the other agencies the rest of the 24 listed here are tasked with with regulating and forcing laws managing state parks and so they don't necessarily have a direct transfer role which is why those top five obviously stand out so I'm gonna run this quickly even get some sound effects great so so what you can see is that over time each category is changing things are jumping around but we can see the total expenditure appropriations again by department by year and a change if you will in some of those categories so and here we end up in 2020 again I would encourage you to go back take a look at this yourself and see if you can see how policy plays out I want to play it one more time slow down just a little bit but if you can I think I have a laser pointer here focus I want to see if you can catch two particular years so 2009 was a recession but it was also the years we the state passed faster so significant increase in tax revenue for transportation so transportation excuse me is transportation his here in pink okay so follow that in 2009 you'll see that change 2009 was also sort of the recession followed by significant increase in unemployment we saw an increase in those enrolled in state's healthcare Medicaid program 2014 was another pivotal year where the state expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and so also track health care policy and financing which is blue so two tasks 2009 and transportation and then again 2014 health care policy and financing so we're tracking out of the what did I say blue sorry Green so 2009 we have faster and transportation funds significantly increase at the same time we session increase in unemployment increase in enrollment in the state's health care program and then in 2014 we state expands Medicaid and draws down a significant amount of federal revenue and increases expenditure for health care policy and financing so it's again you could probably if you want to stay with me till 5:00 p.m. you could probably go through 100 different policy scenarios and see them play out but nonetheless sort of interesting to take a look at and see again how overtime priorities have have shifted or what the priorities ultimately are so I'd be remiss if I didn't show that was total appropriations and I have to say that you know you may think research is you know me sitting in front of a computer clicking away which it most often is but I actually had to go down to the State Capitol and go to the joint Budget Committee library and flip through the old appropriation reports to actually get some of these numbers so this might be you know the first time some this information is actually displayed in aggregate which is total operating appropriations and total capital construction fund appropriations this is just the general fund there's another animation on our website that is the same animation for the general fund but this highlights the change in the share of the general fund for each agency from 2000 to 2010 to 2020 so again just to highlight one item if you look at the yellow bars that's the change in the share of the budget for each department from 2010 to 2020 so between 2010 2020 again healthcare this is in the general fund so this is not directly impacted by an increase in in medicaid funding but nonetheless it's and it has been impacted by an increase in overall enrollment and higher health care related costs so it's increased by over 7% while education as a share of the general fund way over on the right has declined by roughly twelve thirteen percent okay during this 20 year period we the state has experienced a 30 a little over a third 35% increase in total population so obviously the state has continued to grow but I think what I wanted to highlight with this slide is that while we've seen a shift in the priorities and the relative expenditure on each department the overall pie has grown so the bar on the right is total spending per call raden adjusted for inflation so in 2000 spending roughly for a little over $4,000 per Colorado again this is in current dollars today in fiscal year 2020 that's a little over fifty five hundred dollars per colorada and then this breaks it down by fund the general fund on a per Colorado basis had a slight dip in 2010 because of the recession but cash funds as you can see has grown in each subsequent sort of cycle so again just a little bit way another way to sort of highlight some of the shifts and some of the changes that we've seen so I will leave it there and let you go to the website and take a look and follow the bars and and see which ones when and I would encourage you you know if you have any questions feel free to follow up but again we're hoping that this can be a some as a resource as we have another session coming up to provide a little context for where the state currently stands and again where it's been so thank you questions if there are any questions yeah we'll leave those for the panels yeah please buzz yes it's a great question yeah so each year there are revenue streams that go to different funds cash funds general funds and then go to the federal government and then are allocated back to the state and so cash funds are dedicated to a very specific purpose and generally are most often are in the form of what are called enterprises and so they have a very specific purpose the general fund has generally has the state legislature where those funds go on an annual basis there are requirements there are some required increases in those funds that the annual increases are ultimately go to but nonetheless those funds represent ultimately who has discretion over where they're spent so I didn't have please on the record again yeah you have some good questions no I think I think that it's it's the outcome of policy and I think that when you look at putting together policy the long-term ramifications might not necessarily be what the initial thought was and so it's it's it's clearly because of the way that the policy was designed that then has required these funds to to be purchased so it's it's really it comes down to policy that this may not have been the intent originally but this is how policy has played out over 10 15 years please oops sorry ya know this was again just a snapshot of those appropriations reports so we didn't dive into any specific year-over-year changes again pride the bigger context and again let let the the nuanced debates play out I think that's what I mean those debates are important clearly but we wanted to provide a look at the context yeah I'm sending it to him they they they they were very helpful in providing all of the resources I mean you know so the federal the federal funds on a on a per Coloradans you know have remained somewhat flat [Music] that might that might come back through cash funds frankly I think it might through the hospital fee that might actually come back through the cash funds a good question it's your question I think I think it's a combination of state priorities and and I mean obviously with healthcare I think that is largely driven by by the federal legislation but some of the other changes you saw on transportation and education and I think there is nuance there I mean I think again part of it is undoubtedly driven by federal policy but a lot of the base that we're having as a state I think are driven by state decisions please okay last one yeah I mean so you know the tool itself can be produced you know as long as you have that history of data we could you know that's something that you can look at yeah yeah it's flexible in that way it's not something that we've looked at specifically yeah I mean this is this is what is appropriated and maybe what the expectation is or what the law has required local government this is again just state appropriations so this is not this is not local spending at all so to the extent that there are local demands or local expectations that have been changed by the state policy that is not represented here yeah all right thank you [Applause] okay now for what a lot of us have been waiting for hear from some expert reporters in the field that have been covering the last election and are looking forward to this next legislative session and hopefully have a lot of insight information it's my honor to have three of Colorado's top reporters here today I'd like to welcome them to the stage now if you could all turn on your mics let's start with Sean so Sean Boyd an award-winning reporter with more than 20 years of experience as CBS fours political specialist she covers the state legislature national political stories and election cover coverage help me welcome Sean EDC lover is a veteran reporter for the Denver Business Journal covering government transportation economic development beer and the tourism hospitality industry and he does cover a lot of good breweries information too and last but not least um Joey bunch senior rider deputy managing editor and in his words the bon vivant for colorado politics he's also my favorite Alabama football fan besides my husband so roll tide Joey we're on honored to have you join us today and I'm looking forward to this conversation um so let's get started Joey let's start with you thoughts on the 2019 election results to the last election and now I'm not so sure anymore so I'm saying that backwards it was actually an old graphic yeah guess in gender if we'd had some kind of drug on the ballot maybe younger voters so I don't know how much we can read into this November for next November you know Democrats and younger voters tend to turn out stronger at the next election but no doubt about it I mean the Democrats are in the catbird seat and I don't look for that change of the state capitol after next year I mean you know we've got four competitive seats with such a chairman dude state there's not a lot of suspense if you come in politics many more when it comes to these elections because we got four competitive seats in the Senate and three of them are held by Republicans and Republicans will be lucky to hang on to I think two of them next election in the House Republicans would have to flip nine feet so basically jared Polis is playing with the govern with the with the houses money in the next election because i think you'll you'll still have a Democratic majority you know normally I went back over time normally when when the chamber is flip you'll see the party in charge be really aggressive the first session then back off to session the second I don't think we're going to see you back off then I don't know they get so much liberal stuff in the last session I don't know what they could do isn't on November especially as it relates to proposition CC I be curious well I I'm a little like Joey I think it's hard to extrapolate a full 20/20 prediction from such a small turnout in 2019 but I think it continues the trend that Coloradans like Democrats in theory but not the spending policies that most Democrats are advancing at the Statehouse I mean it's almost like Colorado is saying look we continue to remind you we hate Donald Trump but we also hate some of the policies that you're putting forward and I think what it does is it sets up an election in 2020 and a session in 2020 where the legislature and and others who have sought increased funding whether it be for roads or for education or for other causes have been consistently reprimanded we are not going to give you this money we want you to fix our education and fix transportation and find it somewhere else and it sets up a big conflict in the 2020 legislative session as to whether that will actually happen we've heard this discussion we've heard this debate for years the problem is that we see two competing sides one and this is largely from the Democratic side saying look we don't have the money in the budget to fix transportation or fix education at the scale that we need to do it and on the other side you have Republicans saying no no we do and the voters are telling us to do that but rarely do we see a focused policy come out of the Republicans to say okay here's where we're taking the money from and here's where we're gonna put it - I think this sets up almost a demand from voters that the two sides have got to work together to find that I'm not optimistic that will be the debate John you covered it wasn't surprised by the outcomes of either measure but I was surprised by the margins you know I expected a slimmer margin for CC a larger margin for DD I think a few things played into CC you know ad talked about Democrats thinking yo know we don't have the money in the budget but I think in some ways the education advocates and the seat types of the world have hurt themselves so shot themselves in the foot because they're constantly saying legislature you're not doing your job you're not giving us money and so to voters they send the message you know the legislature has the money but they're not giving it to us so voters say you know I spend the money you've got put something toward more toward transportation education and then maybe we'll give you a little bit more to spend so I think you know that's one of the things that probably hurt in the CC and you recently just had a great story on paid family leave and I know that that's going to be one of the big issues headed into the 2020 session what are the top of mind issues that you think will be priority this session well I mean you you hit on it right there I think paid family leave is the biggest piece of the the majority Democratic legislative agenda that was left undone from 2019 and I've had the opportunity luckily that you all haven't to sit through the paid family leave paid family medical leave task force and I'm sorry Diana who's actually a member of that task force out there she and I have spent way too much time together this summer but the nuances that are going into this policy show how important it is for the people who are pushing it and for those of you who may not be familiar this is the idea that every employer in the state must provide paid time off for their employees and the way that it's been structured in the last six legislative sessions in which it's failed five times in the last six legislative sessions is there it would be a fee put on the employees paychecks to create a one to two billion dollar state run system for administering this I think what's really interesting is to see the possibility that this could come to a head not between the Democrats and Republicans so much as between the Democrats in the legislature and the governor governor polis has put out there saying I'm uncomfortable with the size of this program and how long it would take to get it going I would like you all to consider doing this much like we do workers compensation insurance establish a mandate for what every employer must provide make them buy insurance to do this and move out of the way the advocates for this program have said I'm uncomfortable with that I think that would lead to things such as discrimination in hiring by employers and and I think that's what you're really going to see come to a head but rather than go on about each policy I will say that is going to be the microcosm for the big picture which is how much more the legislature will demand of private employers in the session I think you are going to look at that potential mandate coming there is talk about asking employers to increase the amount of tax they're paying into the unemployment insurance trust fund to beef the fund up before the next economic downturn hits we're looking at potentially setting up a state-run retirement savings system that would have to be if not funded at least put into by all employers that don't offer retirement savings and you know we're looking at other things I mean heck we haven't even started talking about change in the labor peace act yet that is going to come right back to the question of what is the role of the employer in terms of state mandates and how much is the state going to require I think on the head when he said you know this is not going to be a great session for business owners I mean that's my sense too and just talking to lawmakers and he ticked off most of them I think the three big issues are going to be the family the paid family and medical leave what opponents call fam lies at different words for that down there and the retirement and then also the public option you know which haven't even talked about at this point and that is going to be an enormous battle down there and I think that's governor's top priority this next session but you know just in in talking to lawmakers they've got regulatory reform that they're talking about some are uncomfortable with the Department of Labor implementing these new rules for overtime and they'd like the legislature to be able to do something about that there's a bill to simplify the tax code that's a good one for business owners I think you know automobile dealers they're gonna deal with a bill that will let people buy their cars online wouldn't have to buy them through dealers anymore there's bills dealing with the employment of people with disabilities so I mean just on and on and you mentioned the the piece labor act to it is going to be a session with lots and lots of bills dealing with business industry and most of them not in their favor Joey and Shawn mentioned public option and you and I have been on the speaking circuit related to that and I know that you've written about it can you maybe tell those that aren't familiar with what's being proposed and where it is right now a little bit more it's a public private insurance program you know I was having a breakfast with a Republican friend of mine yesterday well I'll tell you this Patrick Neville the House Republican speaker and he says that it gets us I don't know if I agree with this but in his view eighty to ninety percent toward a public option because you know it's going to be cheaper below market insurance that's going to pull down the rest of the market but the way they get there you know is with caps and controlling costs we don't know what that's going to look like you know if I'm a business person going into this session I'm feeling real nervous right now because you know the voters have already said that they don't want no don't tax me and then they don't want to spend money on transportation from the existing state budget I think we're going to see a whole raft of fees that to pay for things and you know the public option in health care is you know the big unanswered question you know Patrick had a great line yesterday talking about paid family leave that you know jared Polis is a skeptic and pulling the reins and he said you know it really says something about where this legislature is when jared Polis is the moderating voice some take that what you will you know healthcare is going to be I mean it's the biggest fight we've got going nationally look at the candidates we have four for president and the shades of Medicare for all you know you know and I this is not a new debate for any of us you know when when as you'll read in my column tomorrow when Ronald Reagan said there you go again he was dodging a question about health care from Jimmy Carter in the 1980 debate here we are four decades later and people still can't answer the question we're gonna try to answer it in Colorado let's see if we can do any better than anybody else has so thinking about priorities and you know I've heard and seen that the governor might have a little bit different priority set than the speaker and so I'll just open it to the panel is there any kind of glimpse or inside baseball on where their priorities fall and how they might differ well I think the Democrats priorities are going to be jared Polis his priorities what are you thinking well I mean I think Jared pulses priorities still lie with education now that he's got paid full-day kindergarten throughout the state he wants to gradually put more money into fully paid pre-k programs I don't know that I've heard as much enthusiasm from your standard legislature about that as I have from polis I think legislators are talking a little bit more about health care and about paid family leave and about labor issues and and I don't know where that middle ground is right now I think one of the things that's important to know is we talk about what the legislature is putting forward and for a lot of us that means what what kc5 speak House Speaker Casey Becker what Senate Majority Leader Stephon Berg who were really pulling the the policy reins in those two chambers are wanting to put forward I think you're going to see some reaction from especially the more liberal side of the Democratic caucus who didn't feel like and I know that conservatives and businesses feel like they got beat up last year there's a substantial number of legislators that feel they didn't get what they wanted that SB 181 was not enough that they would essentially like to to do things that would make it much harder to develop throughout the state you know that that that some of the health care measures that polis really championed which were all based on lowering the cost to individuals weren't enough we've seen for about four years now an effort to put forward a pharmaceutical transparency bill in the name of trying to lower the cost of prescription drug it's never even gotten out of committee that's going to be a big cry not from poulos's office but probably from the more liberal democrats this year so I think that's where some of the the the fight may be is how far left you want to go to appease those elements of the caucus versus what Becker and I know this may sound strange of some Becker has tried to be a pragmatist in what she's steering down the middle can she keep that going or not a lot is going to depend on the revenue forecast that comes out this next week what they can and they can't do we're hitting the second tier of Tabor that means income taxes are going to drop from six point three to four point five that's a lot less revenue the state is going to be taking in so anything with a fiscal note is it's probably do a weekend Jean I wonder if we can trust the numbers that we're hearing I mean every major proposal that bolas has marched out a couple of three months later we're finding out he's gonna cost a lot more than they said it was gun called a kindergarten for example right so hundred million more so you know what's interesting what we're not talking about which we talked about seemingly every session is transportation and I ask where's the bills on transportation don't even have one there's no this thing of people right now dealing with transportation and so that is I mean what they're looking at and I think Edie you mentioned it it's fees for transportation so I think you know if they don't have the money that's where they're gonna get it from yeah if you all ever want to be inspired by the legislature you should not have been at the final meeting of the transportation legislative review committee this summer in which they advanced five bills on things like license plates and did nothing to address transportation funding driver's education for foster kids that's enough that's gonna get me out of a traffic jam what-what-what-what Shawn mentioned there and I'm sure some of you have have read I know you've done some of this is that there they're looking at the possibility of saying now well we can't pass a bond sale or a tax hike or even a revenue retention measure statewide so let's let local officials get together and see if they can pass some kind of new district create a new transportation district create your own funding source and basically carve up the state into who's willing to pay to improve our transportation system and who's not and and and and I think at some point early in the session somebody is going to look this and say are we forgetting about all the areas of the state that can't really do this that can't pass this should we be talking again about passing a statewide transportation funding measure beyond the 2.3 billion dollar bond measure that's already set to go on the 2020 ballot thanks to a 2018 bill I think that's I think that's the sleeping giant here is that's gonna rear its head and somebody's gonna say let's stop talking about everything else and talk about transportation but I don't know that it goes anywhere have nots just like an education that's what transportations gonna look at in it tying it back to Chris's presentation when you watch where transportation is on kind of the buckets and where they're being felt Chris correct me if I'm wrong I don't think it's even in the top five right now is that right or barely number five so barely but when you think of transportation that's something that I think if you've pulled and surveyed in there have been a lot on the top of every Coloradans mind it's the number one thing that they want solved and so there is room I believe for some bipartisan solutions are you hearing or seeing any inclination of any other bipartisan bills or policy measures that might be move forward III do I I covered a little bit different stuff than the two of you sometimes so I think on mental health I think we're going to definitely there are tons of mental health bills that will be coming again this session and I think we'll definitely see some bipartisanship on those bills anything else yeah not much else transportation yeah I think Democrats make a big mistake in that they they look at the last election or two and they they assume that everybody's as liberal as they are and I don't think that's true at all what I heard Sean and Edie say a few minutes ago was that you know Colorado voters like Republican ideas they just don't like Republicans right now unless they're named Mike Coffman I don't know but you assume that you know that the you know the state is as liberal as progress now is as as foolhardy as saying that you know Colorado is Alabama it's just not yeah I'll tell you where it's not a bipartisan idea but the idea that jared Polis has put forward that has been flatly rejected by his own caucus of eliminating specific tax breaks in order to bring down the overall corporate income tax is one that some members of the Republican Party particularly senator jack'd hate have kind of caught on to and they've said let's work together to find you know some way to do this the problem with that is that's you know a bipartisan between you know a governor who's not speaking the same language as his caucus and the Republican who's in his last year and isn't often on the same page as much of his caucus so if it's going to be bipartisan it needs a bigger well but that's one area where there could be some bipartisan support I just don't see it yet so we've talked a lot about the legislative session let's switch now and talk about the 2020 ballot and what might be on the ballot next November and I know a lot of you might be thinking oh my gosh we just recovered from this last November but we recently just pulled the list of you know different titles that have been filed and I think it's really fascinating when you look at the overall themes there's a lot of growth restriction ballot initiatives there's a potential tabor repeal so something mimicking a cc but in Reverse might be on the ballot can can you all speak to what you're hearing or what you think might be on the ballot in 2020 oh yeah the wolf got on yesterday they're going to reintroduce the wolf in Colorado that's solving problems national popular vote a huge one and then citizenship to vote proving your citizenship to vote you know that's going to be on it so those will be big ones it'll be interesting to see if the late term abortion ban makes the ballot yeah I mean to me the ballot in 2020 aside from the obvious the US Senate race is going to be defined by Daniel Hayes's growth limitation measure if it gets on capping new residential building permits at 1% per year in each of the the 11 most populous counties along the Front Range I think that's going to be an almost a proxy for whether people you know enjoy the way Colorado is going or don't but but to Shawn's point I think what we're seeing right now is a lot about issues intended to push certain demographics to the ballot whether that be something like the the abortion ban the national popular vote that's going to get out conservatives whether that's going to be a table repeal that could get out liberals although I don't know how you go from losing prophecy C to thinking yeah let's go for a table repeal but but but I think that's I think to be fully honest that's what people who are putting ballot initiatives forward or thinking now how do I get people out that'll affect the elections whether or not my measure passes right I I was gonna ay what ed said but you know people run ballot initiatives for the same reason they rob banks because that's what the money is so I don't know how serious some of these ballot initiatives are but I think they're right they're about driving votes and about earning paychecks for consultants chime into just on when voters might know if you know these are gonna be on the ballot you know once they get their title approved they have like 60 days to collect their signatures something like that I believe it's by March or April we'll know what could be on the bats right so marches marches final yeah and then it's not going to be till August that we are actually going to know what's going to be on the ballot and I think that's going to be key to watch for example the the growth limitation measure I mentioned is something that Hayes tried to put on the ballot two years ago gave up because he didn't think you could get the signatures whether he thinks he can do it this year and not is a different question it's great growth you're still trying to get the repeal of daylight savings I'm in a connection dais how legend just keeps getting better I thought it was just gonna be about Trump and Gardner but now we got daylight savings time well really want to thank you all for being here I'm sure that you all have a lot of questions as well so I'd like to turn it over to the audience at this point we have a little bit of time for that to buzz do you want to start board member prerogative here buzz : it's gonna be a plug for CSP our but also there was a lot of questions today about policy and is it really policy that shifts these numbers when two years ago in the session we were working on the para unfunded liability situation and the very big concerns Chris and our entire team there were seven or eight different variables with the para situation that could have dramatically helped and improved the unfunded liability situation and we were very close to getting some of those past the last minute teachers unions and other forces took over and what they did is they took basically 250 million dollars of increased revenue in the state from the Trump tax cuts and just simple growth and they shifted it all over to protect para whereas our one of our pitches not only gave them a lot of possibilities and variables to improve it and understand the information we gave them but we also felt growth should pay its way everybody says gross should pay its way but what happened in the end is they took the money to prop up para so that's an example of the policy issue but I'm saying this for two reasons one is continue to check out our website we have a lot of information but the more important thing is I think if everybody in this room and a lot of other people don't use this information to try and help direct policy and get involved and get active in terms of protecting our state and particularly the businesses then shame on us and so the point of this was was to make a pitch for what we do and how we try and accomplish it but more importantly we do that because we want to provide information to all of you and others to help get more solid policies put in place sorry for the plug but other questions or comments Myron I don't know I don't know if I agree with that John caldera Randy I'll fix their damn roads last year and listed the projects maybe you should use two different four-letter word it would had a better chance but I think you're right people want to know yeah I mean ref see right what happened with that you know when people think about that I think - I heard from a lot of people that they were bothered by the fact that CC was permanent right you're gonna take these taxes my tax liability goes up permanently how much is that money down the road right and what if things go wrong what if you put money in on one end and you take it out on the other so it's you know net neutral it ends up being for education and transportation what recourse do I have at that point you know it doesn't sunset right I know they do audits but then what you know other thoughts yeah I think I think you're right I'm gonna run a ballad addition if chow fun my pork and see if I can get people to vote for on my porch so you know I think you're right I think people see you know why the government Colorado they got thirty four billion dollars why do they need my $32 tax refund you know why can't they just manage the money that they have you know I don't think people connect the dots of how government works or maybe they do can they pay attention to that if they actually pay attention to it I just think a lot of voters aren't tuned in to that micro level I I think one of the things will be interesting too is that as we are talking about roadways here governor polis is talking mostly about a Front Range rail system and I I wonder a how much he is going to continue pushing that I think it's I think it's a big deal to him and he will continue pushing it and be the more that he continues to push it will that continue to erode the voters confidence that any ask for transportation including this 2.3 billion dollar bond initiative that's going up in next fall's election will just fund that and hurt the chances of anything passing one last question Rock [Laughter] well we forgot to bring it up that was in [Music] so Ed's the beer expert who's the pot expert okay what was everybody looking at me yeah I don't know you know they go to that well so much but you know that money was was was you know supposed to pay for specific things that I can't remember right I don't like that prevents uh yeah you're right maybe we just need to legalize more drugs and we can get our highways you know hero one for highways on that note could we all give our panelists today one big round thank you all for being here I loved hearing your insight it was great thanks everybody for joining us on an early morning luckily we didn't have snow this morning we hope that you found today's program educational and informative as a nonprofit this is my plug which buzz started we rely on support from individuals like you to conduct our research it is tax-deductible there are contribution forms on the table or you can check out our website which is up on the screen but more than that please share our work subscribe to our bi-weekly common-sense digest newsletter like our social media and again maybe cover the cost of breakfast with a little contribution today we will be announcing our quarterly schedule in early 2020 four eggs in the economy we'll make sure that it's on all of your calendars but thanks again for being here really appreciate it [Applause]