Friday morning Colorado Springs Rep. Larry Liston sauntered to the speaker’s well in the House. Under the gold dome, he put some good news on the official record – at least good news to the right side of the chamber.

“I just can’t help myself,” said the Republican lawmaker with an aw-shucks shrug, lifting his palms to each side. “It just keeps rolling in.”

Liston told about three months of tremendous job gains nationally, and a record 89 months of job growth (though he didn’t mention only 13 of those were under a Republican president).

He said the economy is “rip-roaring.” The positive economic report has become a tradition from Liston this session.

At the end, he waved his left hand, beckoning his fellow Republicans, as they called out in unison, ironically, “Thanks, Obama.”

A couple of Democrats were glad to respond.

Rep. Chris Hansen of Denver noted a lot of the job growth was in construction trades, which are cyclical, then pivoted to Trump’s tariffs and “trade wars” that could undermine economic growth.

“Folks, this is very bad news for agriculture, it’s very bad news for the state of Colorado and it’s very bad news for the United States,” Hansen said.

Rep. Daneya Esgar of Pueblo also threw some reality on Liston’s fiscal fun.

“When we talk about good economic news I would ask that all of you please keep the 300 families in Pueblo who were just laid off from a Centura hospital at St. Mary-Corwin in your thoughts this weekend,” she said. “As we celebrate all the good economic news realize that it’s not impacting every community yet.”

In an interview after the House gaveled out for the weekend, Liston told Colorado Politics that Pueblo’s Democratic leadership was the root of some of its economic woes.

“The city and the county are still run by Democrats in Pueblo , whereas Colorado Springs we have a much more, which we’ve been wise, diversified economic growth. So here they’re laying off employees at their hospital, Colorado Springs is adding and expanding our big hospitals, it’s rip-roaring.”

Liston does his report partly because of the Republican tax cuts in Congress and partly because he just likes to.

“They can’t stand it,” he said of the House Democrats.

They want to give President Obama the credit for it, Liston said, “which is not true.”

To Hansen’s point, Liston doesn’t like Trump’s tariffs, either, but he thinks the president is being selective to put pressure on China for its steel-dumping in the United States.. “He’s trying to go to bat for us,” Liston said.

If things take a turn for the worse, Liston pledged to keep giving the economic report – perhaps focusing on the good a little more than the bad.

“I’m just highlighting that the American economy is thriving and growing, especially due to the Tax Reform Act of 2017,” he said. “A lot of people back in December when it passed were poo-pooing that it would only be crumbs and only help the wealthy, which is not true.”