Rich Jones

By Aldo Svaldi
The Denver Post

The new year brings with it a decent bump in pay for about 74,000 Colorado workers earning the minimum wage.

Colorado's minimum wage increases 3.8 percent, or 28 cents, to $7.64 an hour effective today. That's the biggest increase since the state linked its minimum wage to inflation back in 2006.

For an employee making that wage full-time, the increase translates into an extra $582 a year.

By Allison Sherry
The Denver Post

WASHINGTON – Roughly 81,500 Coloradans will exhaust unemployment benefits in 2012 if the law that lengthens the time people can collect insurance is not renewed in the next two weeks, White House officials said Thursday.

The state-by-state analysis was released in a push to lean on Republican members of Congress to compromise during a tense day of bargaining on a package that would not only extend unemployment insurance, but also give payroll tax breaks to 160 million Americans.

If Colorado were to implement a statewide paid-sick-leave law, it could cost the state 14,000 jobs and $1.93 billion in reduced economic output over four years, according to a study by the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

No such statewide proposal exists. However, a municipal paid-sick-leave ordinance will appear on the Denver ballot in November.

An NFIB official said the federation did not calculate projected impacts of the Denver ordinance but chose to estimate statewide impacts in the event that a paid-sick-leave law is proposed for Colorado.

By Steve Raabe
The Denver Post

Consensus and compromise characterized the 2011 Colorado legislative sessions, leading to high marks from the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

In its third annual scorecard of state legislators, the chamber issued no grades below 50 percent. That's a reversal from last year, when the low mark was 16 percent.

It's now officially legislative silly season, when every special interest group tries to claim their share of credit for various legislation that passed. This time it's the Big Government Bell Policy Center using ... wait for it ... an elementary school class to claim credit for legislation that funded the free school breakfast program for students who qualified for reduced price lunches. Problem is Senator Keith King was the one who did it, not Bell Policy.

By Rich Jones
For The Daily Camera

(CORRECTION: A guest opinion provided by the Bell Policy Center on page 7A Tuesday contained an error. The agency reported Tuesday that they were provided erroneous information by the attorney general's office. The opinion stated that "almost half" of payday loan borrowers had 16 or more loans in the previous 12 months. That number should have been 26.56 percent.)

In an editorial last Thursday, the Camera came out against a plan to change payday lending laws in Colorado. It said the legislation is "terrible."

A proposed temporary tax bailout for education and a bill that could give parents a big tool to force closure of failing schools rolled out at the Colorado Capitol Monday.

Randy Woock
Trinidad Times

A bill to monitor and review tax credits and other exemptions by the state that result in reduced tax revenues, and provide that information to the legislature and public in annual reports, was killed in committee last week.

By Joseph Boven
Colorado Independent

A Democratic move to bring pay-as-you-go legislation to the Colorado General Assembly died in the Republican controlled House Finance Committee Thursday, an outcome sponsor Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Niwot, said was no surprise. The bill, HB 1052, died on a 6-6 vote.

House Bill 11-1052 – Concerning the Adoption of Pay-As-You-Go Requirements

Rich Jones, Director of Policy and Research
The Bell Policy Center
February 10, 2011