Colorado’s 8th Congressional District Democratic primary has apparently narrowed into a thrilling choice between two flavors of the same government smoothie: tax more, spend more, regulate more, subsidize more, and then act shocked when regular people can’t afford the state they grew up in.
The Colorado Sun interviewed Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird, the two Democrats running in the June 30 primary, and the result reads less like a congressional issue guide and more like a hostage note from the permanent bureaucracy. The winner gets Republican Gabe Evans in November. Coloradans get another reminder that “help” from these people usually arrives wearing a lanyard and carrying a bill.
Rutinel is a state representative from Commerce City. Bird is a former state representative and Westminster City Council member. Both have law degrees, because of course they do. Nothing says “I understand your grocery bill” like two politicians with résumés polished smooth enough to blind a taxpayer.
On health care, both want to restore Affordable Care Act subsidies and “explore” a public option. On drug prices, both want federal caps or expanded negotiation. On the minimum wage, both land at $15. On child care, Rutinel wants more funding by taxing the wealthy “appropriately,” while Bird wants the federal government to be a “better, stronger partner.” Translation: Washington broke your leg, Denver sold you the crutch, and now they want applause for proposing a national crutch strategy.
Then comes the energy two-step, Colorado’s favorite progressive folk dance.
Both candidates say they do not support a national fracking ban, or at least won’t quite say it that way. Bird says no and talks about “all of the above.” Rutinel talks about reliable, affordable, safe energy. Great. Wonderful. Adult noises detected.
Then both support a federal moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal land. Bird even manages to say Colorado’s 8th District is a major oil producer while supporting a moratorium on drilling, because modern Democratic politics is just saying opposite things into the same microphone and trusting the audience has been concussed.
“We can do both,” she says in essence. Produce energy, but also stop producing it in places politicians want to put under glass. Keep prices affordable, but choke supply. Support workers, but kneecap the industries that employ them. Protect Colorado families, but make sure their utility bill comes with a commemorative lecture from Boulder.
This is the central scam: every answer is free candy from the federal van. Free or cheaper health care. More child care subsidies. More transit. More rail. More loan forgiveness. More regulation. More oversight. More programs. More “fair share.” More Washington. Always more.
And when housing costs explode? Rutinel points to permitting and tariffs. Bird points to private equity and tax credits. Nobody ever seems to point to the governing class that turned Colorado into a paperwork obstacle course with mountain views.
Normal Coloradans are not living inside a candidate questionnaire. They are sitting on I-25, watching rent eat their paycheck, watching energy policy get written by people who think diesel appears by magic, and watching every crisis become an excuse for another federal program with a cheerful acronym and a dead-eyed administrator.
So why send either one to D.C.? To do what, exactly — nationalize the same bad instincts that made Colorado expensive, crowded, overregulated, and smug?
Colorado does not need another ambassador from the Church of Government Will Fix It This Time.
It needs fewer people breaking the furniture and calling it public service.
Source: The Colorado Sun
Just Stop It
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