I’m sure most of you are like me and are upset about the situation with our current government on some level. We have our federal government creating a drug war in Mexico by making all drugs illegal, creating a social rift between liberals and conservatives by making citizens rely on government policy, and keeping our forest unhealthy by refusing funds to fix our beetle-kill problem. I have listened to our state representatives talking over these issues for several years now and the answer for both Republican and Democrat is “let’s go to the feds for money to fight this.” It seems to me if all our state representatives do is ask the feds, then we can save millions in this state by not hiring representatives in the first place.

I have heard the argument that the feds have the authority to control anything from drugs to forest to health care to education because of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Why then did we need an amendment to make alcohol illegal in 1920? As the Constitution’s author, James Madison, put it, misconstruing this clause to control states is to violate an elementary mathematical axiom. The government of that time recognized that states still had some rights, and self-governance prevailed. It still needs to prevail today. What works for New York’s, or California’s school system does not work for Colorado, yet we have uniform rules. What works for the forest in Maine or Washington does not work for Colorado. Why then do we keep voting for the candidate that promises to get us the most money form D.C. to manage these things?

We all have opinions when we hear what D.C. is planning to do. Couldn’t we take those opinions to a vote and manage our own affairs better than a uniform rule for the whole country? The Constitution lays out word for word what ground the U.S. government can own and I don’t see forests or BLM listed anywhere. For that matter I don’t see education, oil production, agriculture, or a multitude of other powers. Why do we still trust them to manage our backyard? Our children? The status quo has simply led to mismanaged forests, mismanaged education, mismanaged drug laws and mismanaged social engineering. I say it is time to get rid of the status quo.

The most compelling argument for this is the simple fact that it is less expensive to manage things at a local level. It costs money to operate a large federal government with such a large span of control. Local policies and enforcement can achieve the same thing much more efficiently. “Government efficiency” is an obsolete term now, but we can change that.

I ask all of you to take a more serious look at our candidates this election and find the one that truly works for Colorado. We have a ballooning federal deficit that is looking more like Greece than the biggest economy in the world. Let’s not add to it. Colorado could save millions or more by not giving the federal government money for things we can manage better. Some candidates may say they want to help our forests, or industry, or environment but let’s all start looking at the ones who want to do this while managing our bank accounts and liberty, too.