The Colorado Club for Growth Horse Keeps Spreading the Word!!!

The Colorado Club for Growth Horse Keeps Spreading the Word!!!
Tom Keller has been traveling the state of Colorado with the Colorado Club for Growth (COCFG) "Horse". He's been spreading the message to voters that Referenda C is the largest tax increase in history, as even one liberal Democratic legislator has now admitted.

On Tuesday (Sept. 6), the mustang trotted around Fort Collins for eight hours sporting his riding blanket "Vote NO on Ref. C - Stop the Trojan Horse".

See photo at: http://www.lpcolorado.org/thisweek/tabor/Dcp03756.jpg

First, he trotted over to the Colorado State University campus, where the Yes on C & D campaign was planning on being greeted by hordes of students desperate to see the referendums pass. To the tax-and-spend campaign's surprise--but no one else's--few students showed up for the rally, and most never even noticed the campaign had been on campus. However, the co-eds did notice the COCFG horse--and right away. He was welcomed at the filling station by four young ladies who jumped at the chance to have their pictures taken with the massive stallion!

As he circled the college, more undergraduates displayed their support for us and TABOR. People smiled and pointed. Some cheered. Others flashed thumbs up. No matter the manner, the reactions were always positive. It was very refreshing to see young people understood and latched on to our message of low taxes and small government, despite what their professors must be telling them.

Later in the afternoon, the Yes on C & D campaign was supposed to have another rally, this time in Old Town, but no one--including the campaign--made an appearance. Another Yes on C & D plan, another blunder. I guess $10 million doesn't buy the kind of help it used to.

A pro-C barbecue at City Park was next on the agenda. While a few people made it to the liberal lots’ meeting this time (probably more because of the free food than the campaign), things were far from exciting, except for the gentleman who tried to stop the horse and tell his jockey (Tom Keller) how Gov. Owens wanted to give money back to the rich. What was that guy smoking? Owens is on his side, not ours.

The day ended with the horse heading over to Lincoln Center to see if anyone wanted to shell out $8 a ticket for a pro-C concert/fund-raiser. Of course, hardly anyone did. The pro-C folks love trying to take other people's money, but they rarely succeed in their efforts.

The LPCO is working with the Colorado Club for Growth in opposing Ref. C. Please support the COCFG horse and his jockey when they're in your area!

Sept. 12 - Brighton, Commerce City
Sept. 13 - Boulder, Louisville/Lafayette, Westminster to City Park in Denver
(Capitol Area)

For the full schedule, visit:

http://www.no-on-c.com/horse.htm

Comments

[Michele Salazar]

Your simplistic, ignorant, self-centered and selfish postcard went immediately to my shreader. Fortunately, the public is not as ignorant you think they are. Most people are aware that GOVERNOR Bill Owens DOES support the amendments C and D. I shudder to think who your "Bill Owens" is . . .

Our state is currently at the bottom in spending of higher and lower education.
Our roads and bridges are falling apart.
The amount of money being "taken" from the public will be approximately $400 over a four-year period. We're still stuck with TABOR, but even our Republican governor knows that we are in a mess.

Please get your head out of wherever it is. Some day our state, and country will be taken back by caring people and interests. Why don't you go live in anarchy on an island somewhere and burn the boat. We don't need or want you.

[severin]

Michele,
More education spending has really worked well for places like Washington DC and NY, LOL get real. More spending on education is just throwing money away, so why do it? Roads? they should not be coming from the general revenue fund anyways, that's what we pay gas taxes and car taxes for, not income tax.

[Philipp Giddings]

Just heard your disinformation commercial the one where a gentleman claims he will loose $3200 if C passes. This is not about new taxes. It's about keeping taxes that the state is already collecting. Your campaign is full of lies and half truths. Referendum C is not a partisan issue, and has bipartisan support.

[Ellen Holtzman-Cotter]

What a bunch of selfish people you are. Colorado is turning into a state of tightwads whose only concern getting back enough tax money to spend on -- what? More beer? Fast food? Another iPod? The concept of the "public good" -- of pooling money for the benefit of many -- seems to be lost on the Libertarian Party and Doug Bruce and his sheep. Right now, the needs of the state are critical, and I plan to vote FOR C&D.

E. Holtzman-Cotter

[severin]

Ellen wrote: "The concept of the "public good" -- of pooling money for the benefit of many -- seems to be lost on the Libertarian Party".
This concept is not lost on the libertarian party, the only difference is that we beleive this should be a voluntary act and not coerced with the threat of jail or violence if we don't want to pay for what we may or may not believe is truly in the "public good". I expect that any reasonable person whould have to agree that not everything the government does is in the public good, yet they are forced to pay for these things anyways. Libertarians also believe that the individual is more important than the group. Group think strikes of communism. So a libertarian would rather give the individual the ability to decide what important to them, instead of forcing everyone to fund what ever you think is important.

[Daniel Ong]

Ellen,

while I am not quite as absolute as Severin and the official Libertarian Party "line" for the near- and intermediate-term, even if one considers higher education a public good, in general we are currently subsidizing the most those resident students most likely to move out of Colorado upon graduation and assisting the least those resident students most likely to remain in Colorado. Such inequity and wasted public investment should not be rewarded by greater largess from the taxpaying general public and should be addressed as we determine the distribution of tax funds, the amount of which needs to be limited by measures such as Colorado's TABOR. Otherwise various inequities and wasted public investments, such as expensive incarceration for victimless "crimes," will continue to be unaddressed by state government.

Monies not kept and distributed by wasteful government can be distributed more efficiently by the private sector through purchases, investments, and charitable donations via informed free will.

Our governor is misguided and buys into the social engineering model of our current court and prison system, which he says is a high priority for him.

Funding for capital construction, given our current model of publicly owned roads and government buildings including K-12 and higher education structures, could better be managed if we had a better reserve mechanism for dealing with TABOR surpluses and revenue shortfalls. I refer you to http://www.americansforprosperity.org/index.php?id=282&state=co for a nationwide survey of strengths and weaknesses of TELs--Tax and Expenditure Limits--which shows there is still room for improvement in Colorado's TABOR, but not Ref. C&D, which would take us in the wrong direction.

Despite Amendment 23 mandated increases for K-12 education beyond inflation and population growth crowding out other programs in the general fund for the next few years (and a lack of correlation between spending and results for K-12 education), the biggest long-term state budget problem is the rapid increase in partially-funded federal mandates for Medicaid. I am not yet an expert in this field and do not have short- and intermediate-term remedies. This growing problem will probably have to be dealt with partially at the federal level, not just the state level.

[Michael Fierro]

How in the world could public education not be good? Without public education, low-income families are doomed to never break out of poverty. Low-income families are barely able to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. They don't have any extra money to educate their children. The absence of public education would lead to a staggeringly large percentage of our population being impoverished and un-educated. How is that not going to put a burden on the rest of society?

[Dee Franco]

I got your postcard and was shocked to see your lie about Bill Owens views on C and D. I saw him on television and have read his comments in the paper. He supports C and D -and has stated that both sides of the aisle do-for the good of Colorado. I didn't know much about the Libertarian Party-but know I know everything I need to know. Blatant lies will help you lose all momentum and support you might have had-for any cause. Your postcard was an insult to all Democrats and Republicans.

[Kacy Gallegos]

Well we know where the Libertarian's head is. The comment about the "massive stallion" and the young ladies is enough to turn your stomach and your ear away from such a self-centered person. I'm sure the Libertarian's brains aren't so massive. They obviously are using the "massive stallion" to screw the people.

The Libertarians have never been a party for the people. Their twisted, perverse and dishonest politics knows no bounds. They are takers, i.e, they will take as much as they can of services payed for by taxpayers, but don't want to give anything back.

Please do us all a favor, get off the grid if you wish and stop wasting our time with your lies, and your egomania.

[Michael Smith]

I was impressed with the simple direct fact and logic in the dirty dozen postcard. I came here to commend the designers, and CCfG for a well done mailer. The posts above this one shocked me. I knew fact and logic were mostly ineffective when talking to lefties in the democan and republicrat camps. Wow! Fact and logic seem to drive both parties to near violence.

Enjoy the tattered remnants of America now. It is doomed to self destruct soon.

[Shannon]

You people are truly delusional. Just heard your last lying commercial; supporting C&D DOES NOT stop us from receiving our tax refunds; only those tiny ridiculous little TABOR refunds. Listen, idiots. MOST of us WANT schools, bridges, universities etc etc etc which are paid for by, gee, TAXES!!!! So all you LP belongers: don't drive, taxes pay for the roads; don't go to the library, don't call the police; don't call the fire department; don't go to school...get it yet??A society is judged by how it cares for it's least able population....you would just spit on the poor. You all make me really sick - we should just give all you malcontents a state and you could see just how unlivable your ideas really are. Of course, all the whitepower people, KKK types, etc etc will be there with you. Good luck. Idiots.

[severin]

Some of these comments have many misperceptions in them.
The main thing I want to point out here is: The LP has not aired any TV or Radio Commercials nor have we sent out any postcards about ref C&D. The official position is against the referendum, but we are not responsible for what others write or air.

[Dennis]

I just did a web search to see who "Colorado Club for Growth" is. You may recognize the name. Funny, but the search brings me right here - to the Libertarian Party of Colorado.

It seems the CC4G is opposed to C&D. They are running television commercials opposing it.

It's a shame when people can say "technically" they are being honest when they say the party isn't running ads. But you know that's not the case.

Of course, I'm sure many of you learned your moral values at private schools; why in the world should anyone less advantaged be given a helping hand? Read about who gets help on Referrendum C.

While I personally don't agree with the borrowing D entails, you might learn that helping others help themselves is better for all. There is more to life than me. me. me.

[Daniel Ong]

http://www.coloradoclubforgrowth.org/ is the address for the Colorado Club for Growth, and http://www.clubforgrowth.org/ is the address for the national Club for Growth (see their "about" pages for further information).

The Club for Growth generally involves itself in raising funds for candidates in Republican primaries who better advocate limited government, to discourage the Republican party from becoming another party of big government. As far as I know, they have not supported any candidates of the Libertarian Party in the past, but I would encourage them to consider doing so in the future.

The Colorado Club for Growth has no official connection with the Libertarian Party of Colorado (LPCO). To the best of my knowledge, LPCO has not sent out any postcards this campaign season (we would like to, but can't afford it).

There is a loose coalition of groups working to defeat Ref. C&D, including Colorado Club for Growth, http://i2i.org/ the Independence Institute via http://www.taxincrease.org/, http://www.freedomworks.org/colorado/ FreedomWorks Colorado via http://www.NoOnRefC.com/, the Colorado Union of Taxpayers via http://www.citizens4fairtaxation.com/ Citizens for Fair Taxation, http://www.backboneamerica.net/ John Andrews' Backbone America, and many other efforts such as http://www.nfib.com/page/homeCO National Federation of Independent Business Colorado, http://www.ifcwinsyoulose.org/ from Joe Stengel, http://www.savetabor.com/ by Fred Holden and http://www.defeatc.com/ (my apologies if I left your group out).

Support for Ref. C&D has taken a more centralized model http://www.voteyesonc-d.com/ with the support of over 1000 groups that would stand to benefit directly from the higher government spending, projected to be over $30 billion over the next 25 years.

However, this increased government spending would leave less money left for people to distribute, save, invest, and donate on their own. Having this much money directed through government spending instead of people's own choices would lower the growth of our state economy and leave the recipients of the spending less accountable to the source of the funding, the taxpayers.

Just because this blog turns up first on a search for another group is no reason to assume any formal connection between the two. Search results generally turn up the page linked the most from other pages, not necessary the "official" page of the group searched for. The mere mention of a lesser known group on a page of a more well known group can lead to search results pointing to the more well known group's page rather than the lesser known group.

Libertarians believe in education, but believe the current public K-12 system is wasteful, inefficient, and beholden to the teachers union more than parents and taxpayers. Better near-term solutions would include K-12 public school vouchers, such as we have now as the first state in the nation with limited vouchers for higher education.

Even without government involvement in K-12 education, parents would see its importance and see that their children were educated anyway--see http://cato.org/research/articles/tooley-050901.html "Private Schools in the Poorest Countries" where it is pointed out that the more government is involved in education spending, the less accountability there is to parents.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado believes in helping others; we just believe it is better done through voluntary, private, and for-profit and charitable means, not through government. Many LPCO members are actively involved in private volunteer efforts. Government tends to be inefficient and wasteful, in addition to being coercive.

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master." -- George Washington

"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Man is not free unless government is limited." -- Ronald Reagan: Farewell Speech, 1988

Referenda C&D basically eviscerate TABOR and remove spending limits on Colorado government for the next five years save for revenue raised, then raise the baseline for future spending limits to the highest attained during the next five years. The looser the limits on government, the less free we are.