I just got done reading and watching a few stories on how our elected betters in Denver are attempting to “balance” the next year’s budget, and I’ll just have to admit I have no idea what the hell they are doing.

Then again, it’s become apparent neither do the vast majority of “lawmakers.”

Let’s just start at the glaring, main problem with the state’s budget. It’s the fact they need to CUT $1.2 BILLION to make up the gap between revenues and spending. Given the fact our legislators pretty much know what the next year’s budget is going to be, given TABOR restrictions and anticipated revenue, how exactly do they begin with a budget that overspends by $1.2 billion?

I’m sorry, that’s supposed to say a $1.2 billion “budget shortfall,” because that language allows lawmakers to put the blame on taxpayers and TABOR for them not having enough money to fulfill their spendthrift-ness, which reaches more epic proportions every year democrats control our state government.

Again, they pretty much know what’s coming in, how the feds are going to push unfunded mandates on to the states every year along with checking every dollar confiscated into their coffers every day so they know where it’s trending.

Yet they plan on overspending their budget while passing hundreds upon hundreds of new pieces of legislation costing more every year. These are the same folks who thought pot sales were going to cure all our spending ills and just recently announced the concept of having the state perform and pay for more abortions, because it could cut down on some Medicare expenses.

It’s like Hell’s home office has a new address on Colfax Avenue. Then again, having driven down Colfax my fair share of times, just look at a lot of what that road is paved with and I might be onto something.

And what do our lawmakers do when faced with the results from their actions? They roll out the same tired classics. You know this favorite: Women and children will be hurt the most. Although, they are attaching food banks this year as well, because there’s a federal DOGE attachment. They also tossed in diapers. Did you know there was a state program for half a million dollars’ worth of diapers on the books?

Now, I believe in social safety nets – at the local level. Because at the state level where there’s billions of dollars’ worth of problems, these things tend to be political footballs. And that’s for one simple reason. The state refuses to look at what it’s doing to harm the lives of its citizens in causing the need for food pantries and diaper programs at the state level.

Fact is, we all know the reason. A lot of the money comes from the feds, and it’s all about cash flow with Denver as the middle man. And then they can appeal to our caring nature when it has to make cuts to try to change tax law.

On another front of the “women and children most affected” bus, the wheels go round and round to this favored destination: Cutting the school budget. Fact is, they’ve been underfunding our local schools for 30 years in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Apparently, nothing balances a Colorado budget faster than making kids suffer. Beats asking the tough question of why our state can’t fund elementary and secondary schools properly and why it’s propping up higher education in any way given the exponential rise in costs and tuition.

But why ask any of the tough questions when you can brag about “eliminating” $400,000 in funding for a position that was never filled for an office that never came into existence. Or repeal a program for literacy for low-income households that never signed up any households (My apologies, I forgot to add “the poor” along with the women and children as one of the most affected as well when the state cuts overspending). Or here’s a favorite: Ending an energy-efficiency program for pot growers is going up in smoke.

Truth told, there’s so many accounting tricks in these news stories it makes my head spin. Just a cursory look would make any small business owner come to one conclusion: Our lawmakers are breaking their own laws and probably more than a few criminal laws that would apply to you and me if we got caught up in the same schemes. More ironic, the stuff being proposed that I’ve seen seems akin to the despised DOGE actions by the Trump administration.

They also do little to address Babar and Celeste in the circus tent on Colfax. Funding education and Medicaid? My guess, they’ll cut elementary and secondary education as they always have, push costs onto higher education students as they should and do more of, and come up with some gimmick to pay for health care, because they still need the ever-smaller “matching” money from the feds. An unfunded mandate, indeed.

Now, you may think I’m taking a loose look at this budget stuff. Know this. I’m a two-column kind of accounting guy. Money in/Money out. And part one needs to be more than part two. It’s how the rest of us survive in the real world.

But why do that when you can blame Trump and TABOR?

In Christ and freedom.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at (970) 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.