The holiday season is supposed to be the season of giving. Apparently, the only people really giving this year – and next – are Colorado taxpayers. 

The year about to pass will go down as one of the most anti-taxpayer years in Colorado history, with a property tax crisis allowed to fester, and the liberals in charge of the state remaining steadfast that, to them, the only good tax cut is a dead tax cut. 

Throughout the year, taxpayers have been the victims of the governmentally tight-fisted in both state and local governments. With few exceptions, most of the elected liberal elite want to take as much of your money as they can as fast as they can and keep taking it for as long as they can. 

Their top concern is to protect an unimpeded flow of more-than-needed tax revenue. And they are relentless in their pursuit. 

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In the wake of the massive rebuke of the shabby and dishonest Proposition HH, lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis had the opportunity to listen to the voters and enact a solution to the coming spike in local taxes that could surpass 40% for some property owners. 

Instead, they passed something in the special session so they could say they passed something. But when they could have enacted serious reform measures, such as a tax rollback and future cap, they loudly, and in unison, said no. 

Then they kicked this stink bomb down one floor at the State Capitol and into the governor’s office. 

Though he had to make the obligatory claim that the special session was a grand success (although everybody knows it wasn’t) Gov. Polis pivoted to publicly challenge local governments to do what most of them hate to do: cut taxes. 

This, of course, came after the governor had previously asked local governments to do what they hate to do even more: give up power and authority, in this case over local zoning and land use. He also reminded them they are going to be floating in revenue increases well above the rate of inflation.

Room for relief, in other words. 

Their response: Bah! Humbug!

Except for Douglas County. 

The conservative-leaning county once again stepped up and did what was right for its constituents, not for bigger government balance sheets. The three GOP commissioners reduced property assessed valuations by a total of $28 million. No chump change tax cut there.   

A county should be able to set its own tax policy, right? 

Not in Colorado.

The proposed change in assessed valuation had to go before an obscure state panel known as the State Board of Equalization, supposedly a formality. In fact, the board’s staff reported Douglas County followed all the right legal steps.

The panel, however, is comprised of senior political officials (or their designees) and two Polis appointees. All Democrats, including one of the architects of Prop HH. 

The tax cut was as welcome as Liz Cheney would be at a Mar-a-Lago Christmas party. This anti-taxpayer kangaroo court voted the Douglas County tax cut down, a move Commissioner George Teal called “unprofessional and partisan.” 

So much for local control, maybe because DougCo wasn’t asking to ban guns, or set up drug injection sites. So much for helping taxpayers.  

Even Gov. Polis objected to the vote, including those cast by his two appointees and his designee, liberal former Secretary of State Bernie Buescher. After all, Douglas County did what the governor wanted all local governments to do. 

If he is truly disappointed in this vote, the governor should replace his two appointees and consider naming another designee to sit on this board. There are three Douglas County Commissioners, exactly the number needed. 

It’s more and more clear if legislative Democrats are presented with a tax cut, they will hold onto your money, white-knuckled and red-faced, yelling “out of my cold dead hands!”  

These tax spenders are never going to provide real relief and will stop it any way they can. If Coloradans want tax relief, we will have to wrap our own gift. 

See you at the ballot box next November. 

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.