Author: Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board

Tax collectors have been reviled throughout the ages — from the publicans of the New Testament to the Beatles’ “Taxman” nearly 2,000 years later. Yet, it’s unlikely anyone ever wrote a song denouncing the collection of fees. Perhaps someone should — because in Colorado, at least, taxes and fees have come to mean pretty much…

Law-abiding Coloradans fed up with the epic crime wave of the past few years would be justifiably angry if they knew that a lot of the criminals who do wind up going to prison in our state don’t stay there long. Felons typically can be considered for parole after they have served as little as…

Few jurisdictions do more than Colorado to “protect” employees from employers. The overregulation of employer-employee relationships is costing jobs and future employment for people in desperation. When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this week revised employment numbers for the first quarter of 2024, it showed a downward revision of 818,000 fewer jobs nationwide than…

We’ll say it again: The ballot issue that hoodwinked Colorado voters into legalizing hallucinogens two years ago was a charade. It was backed by big money from out of state and pitched disingenuously as a way to provide “therapy” for mental health issues. It actually was a scheme to launch yet another recreational drug industry…

Murphy Robinson has proved himself a forceful law enforcement leader and an able and agile public administrator during his career. As Denver’s public safety chief, presiding at a particularly trying time over the Denver Police Department and other public safety agencies, Robinson showed a solid instinct for nudging needed change while drawing the line at…

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris plans to unveil an economic plan Friday that features a crackdown on “price gouging.” It would do nothing. For proof, look to Colorado. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Harris will promise to end “price gouging” in “an aggressive rhetorical attempt to shift the blame for high inflation onto…

When ill-informed urban voters unleashed wolves on rural Colorado — by less than a 1% vote margin — they enacted a failure. Since introduction, wolves have killed at nearly two dozen heads of livestock this year — not including undocumented kills — and Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) seeks more wolves. Thankfully, people who know…

Colorado’s John Denver glamorized rural life 50 years ago, singing “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.” Fast-forward to 2024, and Colorado’s country residents are begging God for mercy. A high percentage of urban voters along the Front Range, many of them transplants from large coastal metroplexes, don’t understand rural people and their lifestyles. Their interaction…

Probably no emergency could better justify a special session of Colorado’s Legislature than the urgent need to rein in the state’s skyrocketing property taxes. Homeowners were slammed by property-tax bills that had leaped 25% or more this past spring. Thanks to a scoop by our news team, we’ve learned such a special session now might…

We’ve been impressed by Coloradan Neil Gorsuch since his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017, and it’s not just because he’s a native son. It’s also because the brilliant jurist, who holds degrees from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford, infused the nation’s highest court with a fresh dose of common sense. It’s evident in…