As our legislators — both returning and newly-elected — plan to kick off the next session of the Colorado General Assembly in January, budget writers are already warning of deep cuts and difficult decisions on the horizon. Thankfully, our wise leaders have quickly identified the problem: you and the rest of those pesky tightwads who refuse to fork over more of your earnings.

Joint Budget Committee Chairman and State Sen. Jeff Bridges (D-Greenwood Village) told Colorado Politics “TABOR is why we can’t have nice things.” The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights Sen. Bridges and other Democratic legislators constantly bemoan is a voter-imposed limitation on the growth of our state government and the taxes it levies on citizens. How dare we!

Thankfully, none of the blame is to be placed on lawmakers and their continual expansion of our state government.

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Our wise state legislators have created 15 new offices, one new department and a new division since 2019, adding more than 150 full-time employees to our government payroll and costing us more than $200 million. One example is the Office of Statewide Equity (created in 2022) which has 19 full-time employees allocated this year and a price tag of more than $1.5 million.

In total, our state government has added almost 3,500 full-time employees to the payroll in the last four years.

Structural challenges of bungled state budget go beyond simple politics | POINT

Now, undoubtedly, some of these new offices and state employees are necessary and produce important work, but they highlight a trend of “smaller” expenditures that add up to large numbers. We set aside $500,000 for a study on pay equity and more than $200,000 for a study on native pollinating insects in 2022. We tossed more than $300,000 in 2023 at identifying what jobs oil-and-gas workers might be good at since the industry is being pushed out of Colorado. We just spent more than $300,000 to study property insurance for homeowners’ associations and hotels this year.

Does any of this sound like a state government trying to keep more money in your pocket?

If legislators are feeling cash-strapped, perhaps they should visit the Office of Financial Empowerment (created in 2021), where two more full-time employees can help “identify barriers to financial empowerment” for our state government.

TABOR isn’t why “we” can’t have nice things — it’s why lawmakers can’t have free reign to tax, fee and spend our state into oblivion.

Sage Naumann is a conservative commentator and strategist. He operates Anthem Communications and was previously the spokesman for the Colorado Senate Republicans. Follow him on Twitter @SageNaumann.