Democrats are singing as a chorus in the first week of the General Assembly. It’s a happy birthday tune for Colorado in its 150th year. No one is off the beat or on a flat note. Crime and safety, housing, land use, tax relief, reduced cost of health care, energy development and climate change, water policy, and education – these all make the list of the state’s 150th year’s priorities. Engaging with these issues will focus Colorado on the quality of life for residents over our next century and a half.

Republicans have found a small place in the back row of the choir. Of 107 bills introduced in the first week, 29 are bipartisan. The GOP’s most important priority is public safety which is where the GOP and Dems have overlapping concerns but different solutions. The GOP is sticking to its guns. Rep. Kenneth DeGraaf, HD-22 in Colorado Springs, has introduced HB23-1044 to preserve the second amendment. The bill would likely eviscerate the red flag law that is already under-enforced in the state. Rep. Ty Winter, HD-47 in Trinidad, has put up HB23-1050 that creates a right to use deadly physical force against intruders in certain circumstances. The bill covers owners, managers and employees. Public safety, Republican style.

Gov. Jared Polis wants to improve public safety also. He’s going to crack down on car theft. His Sentencing Task Force, a component of his Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, has recommendations for the legislature that will take auto theft punishment to a more serious level. It will be a sociology experiment to see if getting tough on a crime reduces the crime.

The Governor’s perspective on housing, property taxes, income taxes, health insurance, hospital profits and quality education is perplexing. It appears there’s an unsolvable math problem embedded in these issues.

Housing is on everyone’s mind. Polis wants more rentals and other residential units built close to places of work. This vision may put land-use decisions of local governments in conflict with the state’s initiatives to build. For example, SB23-035 will allow the middle-income housing authority to enhance its public-private partnerships by exempting selected housing units from state and local taxes. That exemption may work great for the state but not so great for local governments.

The Governor also wants to trim property taxes and eliminate the state income tax. In his state-of-the-state, he said he “despises the income tax” and is proud to have supported “two successful income tax cuts at the ballot.” This belief represents the Governor’s solo tune as few Democrats agree with this position. What Polis hasn’t addressed is how losing state money from the income tax will affect a whole range of public services including health care and public education. Additional lost property taxes will also seriously affect public education funding.

These taxation questions present the paradoxical math problem Polis faces. He’s not allowed to use imaginary numbers, but he does have to figure out how to square the circle. With some creativity and imagination, this trick may be possible based on clues from his Tuesday address.

The Governor noted that some hospital systems are making record profits, sitting on large reserves, and paying no taxes. He also stated health insurance companies and hospitals are overcharging consumers with administrative and other costs unrelated to health care delivery.

Maybe Polis should put the same lens on hospitals and health care insurers as he has on the auto theft industry. He can give untaxed hospitals a choice: pay a fee to replace the reduced property and income taxes the Governor is seeking or pay a fine for taking profits from gouging. The fee can be applied to replace public education dollars, a good community benefit. Price gouging penalties, if increasing the cost of crime works, could deter the overcharging and thus reduce health care costs for consumers. Both consequences would support the Governor’s goals of tax reduction, adequate education funding, lower health care costs, and crime reduction.

Another health care math solution, probably easier to implement, would be to take health insurance companies out of the math problem entirely. That would reduce consumer cost and allow a more laser-like focus on hospital operations and over-charges. This approach to the health care cost problem would also last into decades, maybe even 150 years.

Another idea for solving the Governor’s math complexities involves energy and climate change. Since the Governor took office, and even with the “work” of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on SB19-181 to protect people and the environment from the deleterious effects of oil and gas drilling, over 7,500 new wells have been authorized. That’s a lot of pollution and carbon that interferes with the Governor’s goal of a carbon-free Colorado by 2040. Then there’s Suncor spewing its emissions into the air ruining the health of so many who live in Commerce City, north Denver, and other nearby communities.

If the Governor really wants to get rid of the income tax, Colorado’s energy players offer some potential for funding mitigation. Taxing or imposing fees on these industries could be akin to marijuana cigarette, and alcohol taxes – that is, another sin tax. Maybe we could just label the payments as carbon fees. Or pollution fees. Or getting-right-with-communities fees. It could be a start on squaring a circle.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.