VIDEO: How to fix the Colorado budget? Talk about it

By Scot Kersgaard
The Colorado Independent
(Also posted on The American Independent)

Now that this year's legislative session is safely behind us, maybe it's time to talk about the state budget. That, anyway, seems to be the premise behind a video released today by the Bell Policy Center and ProgressNow Colorado.

The six-minute animated video bills itself as a plain-English introduction to Colorado's budget-where the money comes from and where it goes.

The Old West-style cartoon makes the point that in Colorado's early days when a road or a school or a prison needed to be built, people got together and figured out how to do it. These days, not so much.

"The purpose of the video is to start a critical conversation about state fiscal policy," said Wade Buchanan, president of the Bell Policy Center. "The video helps frame that conversation and urges viewers to learn more."

"The budget is a very complicated subject," said Kjersten Forseth, executive director of ProgressNow Colorado. "We just want to make it a little easier for people to understand where the money comes from and where it goes so that we can start a discussion. The way things are now, if we don't do something, the budget seems like an unfixable problem. Starting a conversation could be the beginning of finding a solution," she said.