A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Denver post, Dec. 11, on what tax reform President Obama should campaign for:
President Obama was said to be pondering whether to make comprehensive tax reform a top legislative priority next year, but on Dec. 10 the White House stepped back from those comments.
We hope they go for it.
Simplifying the tax code would benefit all Americans and the economy.
According to The New York Times, the president has asked his economic team to review the parameters of possible reform by studying possible “options for closing loopholes and simplifying income taxes for corporations and individuals, though the study of the corporate tax system is farther along.”
There are many reasons we hope that the administration moves forward with comprehensive tax reform. A simplification of the code would be popular among voters of both parties. (The president could sure use some good news on that front.)
A successful bipartisan overhaul would be the first small step in rebuilding voter confidence in Washington. More importantly, simplification would save millions of households the hassle of wasting time and money wrestling with tax codes that have grown needlessly complex. By lowering these extraneous costs, individual filers and business owners would have more incentive to be in compliance.
A reform of the country’s tax code is long overdue. Over the years, a convoluted hodgepodge of deductions and exemptions have made life miserable for the average taxpayer but also has allowed some upper-income-earners to deftly manipulate the system. A flattened rate, without endless exemptions, is likely to increase revenue even if tax rates remain the same for the top bracket.
This approach has been embraced by the president’s debt-reduction commission. It’s a more equitable way to tax Americans.
But the president should not stop there. Many economists believe the U.S. corporate tax rates—which are some of the highest in the world—have been chasing capital investment and businesses out of the country. We hope that Washington will finally take a serious look at these rates. After all, the best way to generate tax revenue is economic growth.
With that said, we understand there are many embedded political forces and special interests that will resist any tax reform. But surely there is plenty of room for common ground between leaders of both parties. We also understand that the tax code is intricately tied to the far larger problems of exploding deficits and debt.
But just because the two are linked does not mean Washington must shy away from restructuring the infrastructure of tax policy. A more manageable tax structure, in fact, may help make future reform easier.
Certainly, one problem doesn’t have to wait for the other, because tax reform would mean immediate, tangible benefits for households and businesses across the country.
Editorial:
———
Aurora Sentinel, Dec. 13, on Congress needing to amend, not repeal, health care reform:
Oh yes they can, and oh yes they do.
Contrary to the opinion released Monday by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, that the so-called Obamacare reform act is unconstitutional, the government most certainly does require citizens and corporations to pay taxes, which is really what the health-care reform effort is all about.
Hudson’s argument is that the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause doesn’t give Congress the authority to compel people to buy health insurance.
But the way the law is actually written calls for a change in the Internal Revenue Service code, requiring Americans to pay a tax if they don’t have health insurance from either a private or government source.
As all Americans can woefully attest, the government is well versed in taxation.
While we agree that force feeding the for-profit private health insurance industry is far from the best way to provide better, cheaper and more accessible health care to more Americans, it was at the time the only way to drag enough Republican lawmakers into the fold to finally get something done. Much more preferable would have been a single-payer health-care system that would have funneled more dollars into health-care services instead of health-care bureaucracy. The time for that argument, however, has long passed. Republicans had their chance for more than a decade to find a way to keep the health-care system from destroying both the national economy and breaking the bank for the bulk of American families and businesses. They did nothing as the system grew out of control.
Irresponsible management and unchecked greed made it compulsory for the government to do something, and given the naïveté of too many Americans and the misinformation spewed by critics, the Obamacare act was the best the Senate, hobbled with obstructionist Republicans, could produce.
So to ensure that the pool of those paying into the insurance system is big enough to handle the expense of everyone receiving care, Congress proposed a tax on those who are uninsured—unless they’re poor, or members of the military, or covered by a government insurance program, or even just religiously opposed to the notion.
Our money is on a Supreme Court that would be too embarrassed, as a whole, to stretch their politics over the history of a court that regularly defers to the power of Congress to impose taxes. There have been far more eloquent and determined adversaries of the Commerce Clause than those contemporary detractors thrown out on their ear by the high court on similar questions.
Repeal would be a magnificent mistake. Instead, Congress needs to amend the measure to stop insurance companies and health-care providers from gouging the public, most likely by creating either an expansion of the Medicare program or offering a new government-sponsored health-insurance program.
Editorial:
STATE:
The Gazette, Dec. 8, on deregulating alcohol sales statewide:
Another beer battle brews in Colorado, as convenience store owners prepare their fourth attempt at convincing the Legislature to restore their right to sell full-strength beer. Without a change, convenience stores are allowed to sell only weak-alcohol 3.2 concoctions.
Some owners of small breweries and brewpubs fear that allowing convenience stores to sell good beer would hurt mom and pop liquor stores, which buy and sell mom and pop Colorado beers. They fear corporate convenience stores will be difficult to work with, even though they buy and sell microbrews in other states because consumers want them to.
Gov.-elect John Hickenlooper, a pioneer in Colorado’s brewpub phenomenon, says the Front Range has become the Napa Valley of fine beer under today’s restrictions. We’re to believe that allowing less-regulated sale of beer, and enhanced options for consumers, would somehow threaten Colorado’s great beer culture.
Beer traditions do not, and should not, result from state regulation that dictates what Merchant A may sell and what Merchant B may sell. Great beer traditions result from great beer and brewers—such as our state’s next governor.
The state should treat all merchants equally. Fine beer does not need a political protection racket. Consumer choice must be respected, not trampled on, by the law.
Let’s hope the Legislature finally deregulates liquor and beer sales in Colorado, restoring to millions of consumers the right to buy where they choose and determine which products flourish. Trust consumers, Gov.-elect Hickenlooper, who have made you successful. In a liberated market, fine microbrew will probably do even better than before.
Editorial:
———
The Daily Camera, Dec. 12, on state continuing to grapple with medical marijuana regulation:
The state continues to grapple with its medical marijuana regulations, even though Coloradans made legal medical marijuana part of our state constitution a decade ago.
Some of the regulations make a lot of sense, and some have been an overreaction to the stigma that marijuana use—even legal, safe, use for medical conditions like chronic pain—still carries. We like that communities are talking about where the drugs can be sold, for instance. We don’t like that many communities have banned dispensaries altogether. We think requiring a real doctor, with a real relationship with the patient, is certainly within the spirit of the law, even though medical marijuana advocates find it burdensome.
Last week, we were treated to two marijuana proposals, and on the sense, nonsense scale, we got one of each:
Common sense: In the statehouse, Boulder Democrat Rep. Claire Levy plans to propose a measure that would set a threshold for how much THC a marijuana user could have in their system, above which they could be charged with driving impaired. Levy has made several positive changes to our driving-under-the-influence laws, and this is a natural extension of that. This is where people get upset about the dangers of texting while driving, or eating while driving, or reading maps stretched across the steering wheel while driving—so why pick on pot? Well, for that matter, why pick on drunk drivers, then? These are not competent arguments to defend driving while high on marijuana. It’s not safe. In Colorado, THC or some other form of marijuana showed up in 26 of the 312 drivers killed this year. Police still need to have cause to pull over drivers.
Nonsense: The Colorado Department of Revenue’s Medical Marijuana Advisory Board has included in its proposal for regulations an idea to have the entire registry of medical marijuana users available to law enforcement 24/7. Considering that marijuana use is still illegal under federal law, we urge the state to dump this suggestion. We’re not talking about people in custody, someone who has crashed their car, or people who have been caught with marijuana who need to have the legality of their usage checked with the state: We’re talking about everyone. This flies in the face of the intent of the constitutional law. Law-abiding Coloradans are entitled to keep their health information private.
Truth is, ten years on, we are still on the frontier of how we will regulate marijuana in our future. What Colorado decides will likely be a useful roadmap for states that legalize the use of the drug down the road. We hope it won’t take all of them more than a decade to figure out common sense regulation of a drug that has been proven to help so many patients.
Editorial:
