“Hey, Mr. President, all you congressmen too,” the King of the Blues, B.B. King, sang forty years ago. “You got me frustrated, and I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to make a living; I can’t save a cent. It takes all of my money, just to eat and pay my rent. I got the blues – got those inflation blues.”

To this day, B.B.’s “Inflation Blues” holds up as one of the most underrated blues tunes of all time. It resonates more now than in decades – especially in Colorado.

Today, you might as well rewrite the lyrics as a plea to Gov. Jared Polis and our legislators. Contrary to the “feel good” talk offered in his state of the state address Tuesday, the policies of Polis and his Democratic allies in the legislature are a big reason “things are going up and up and up and up.”

Just take a trip to the grocery store. Many of us are facing shellshock when we pick up a dozen eggs, now among the products facing shortages or rising costs. Eggs are 59.9% more expensive year-over-year, stemming from several key factors. Among them: Colorado is one of a handful of states now mandating that commercial farms and grocery stores stop selling eggs that weren’t laid in “cage-free” facilities.

“Converting their facilities to be cage-free is an added cost on egg producers,” explains Lisa Steele, Fresh Eggs Daily blogger and fifth-generation chicken keeper. “Additionally, a cage-free environment purportedly leads to aggression between the hens and a higher mortality rate as well as more broken eggs. Those additional costs resulting in less efficient production will naturally also be passed along to consumers in the years to come…”

This is simply one of those feel-good kind of laws that do nothing but make things worse for everyday Coloradans. The chickens will still be cooped up in barns, anyway – not roaming “free range.” Still, the budgets of Coloradans and mom-and-pop restaurants are further strained by higher egg prices.

When you leave the store with your eggs, make sure you’re ready to spend $0.10 per plastic bag thanks to the Democrats’ bag “fee” (actually an unconstitutional tax). I wrote about this two weeks ago, noting how, by pursuing the same no-good-but-feel-good environmental agenda, the new plastic bag law will hamper everyday life by shutting down the multi-use conveniences of plastic bags.

That bag tax may follow you to the fast food restaurant when you buy a more-expensive chicken sandwich on the fly, as the fee applies to paper bags, too. If you’re ordering from DoorDash or GrubHub, the Democrats’ bag tax will get slapped on top of the 30-cent-per-ride ridesharing “fee.”

The costs of bringing your eggs home, getting your chicken sandwich delivered, and commuting to work are also going up: Gas prices are rising again, local stations are running out – and Polis refuses to eliminate his new 2 cent-a-gallon gas tax (“fee”) hike.

What was Polis saying about “saving people money at the pump?” While Suncor’s refinery shutdown technically drives short-term spikes, Colorado Democrats can’t hide from their responsibility for energy cost hikes. Moreover, his proposed $120 million clean energy tax credit will likely amount to little short-term benefit for consumers and dubious long-term benefits.

As part of Polis’s attempt to paint himself as “saving people money,” the governor pronounced premature success for the “Colorado Option,” which is the state’s standardized government health insurance plan mandated to each company on the state’s health insurance exchange.

Au contraire, Governor. As I explored last week, these price controls in the insurance market are unrealistic, won’t cut costs and are rooted in unrealistic expectations. As Politico reported, Colorado is one of three states to have this kind of public option – and they already “aren’t working out as hoped.”

Worse still, Colorado had the second-highest jump in private health insurance premiums nationwide. The average monthly premium has soared 19.6%. So much for reducing health care costs.

On taxes, Polis again claimed support for eliminating the state’s income tax, although such assertions must always be parsed. For example, he rightly hyped the two cuts in Colorado’s income tax rate – but those are all thanks to the voters.

Polis likewise claimed to have worked with legislators “to send every tax filer $750 nearly a year ahead of schedule, providing real inflation relief just when people needed it the most.” Of course, this is solely due to the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, which voters implemented 30 years ago this month.

While taking credit for the fruits of TABOR, Democrats are yet again trying to revoke those very tax refunds – this time proposing to eliminate TABOR refunds under the guise of “paying teachers more.”

“We have the tools to save people money,” Polis declared. “Let’s get it done.”

If only he were serious. Alas, unlike the late B.B. King – and the rest of us – Polis doesn’t get those inflation blues.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on News/Talk 710 KNUS. Reach Jimmy online at JimmySengenberger.com or on Twitter @SengCenter.