Reading through the Summit Daily News recently, it’s apparent we’re in for some belt tightening ahead. While an article on efforts to preserve Colorado’s natural resources touched on the need to build coalitions for achieving the Colorado Outdoor Plan’s goals, it also mentioned that accomplishing many, or any, of them depends on available funding. While it’s heartening to see how many counties and organizations have ideas for preserving what so many of us cherish about Colorado, if there’s no money for these efforts it’s really just words on paper.

If you’ve been following the news, the fiscal challenges for such efforts in Colorado probably aren’t a surprise to you. For instance, another story in the Summit Daily News spoke to Gov. Jared Polis’ signing the state budget for the upcoming fiscal year, a budget that includes major cuts to critical needs in the state. So as important as the issues outlined in the Colorado Outdoor Plan are, the planning therein probably aren’t gonna get much help from the state as we struggle to fund more basic needs.

The Colorado Department of Transportation, for instance, will be taking a hit in the next fiscal year. Funding for transportation needs, including road maintenance, in Colorado is close to the bottom in the U.S., and the new budget doesn’t show any promise of changing that ranking. No surprises there either if you’ve spent any time on roads in other states recently. I have — be it Florida, Utah, Missouri or Nevada — and it’s hard not to notice how inferior our road infrastructure is compared to other states. Considering the beating our roads take from vehicles and our freeze-thaw environment, it’s easy to understand why they’re in the shape they are in. Adding insult to injury is the negligence we Colorado voters have exhibited over the years in failing to pay for the needed upkeep and improvements of our roads. Negligence that’s made those ruts and potholes on practically every road seemingly permanent fixtures.

Colorado’s 25/26 budget also cuts Medicaid by underfunding Medicaid reimbursement rates. This, at a time when the Feds have their sights laser focused on slashing Medicaid payments to states to fund tax cuts. This potential double whammy will be especially hard on states like Colorado that took advantage of COVID-19-era Medicaid funding expansion, dollars offered by the Feds to help states keep citizens insured during that healthcare crisis. Signing onto that expansion may have made sense at the time, but Colorado lawmakers had to know a day of financial reckoning on that expansion was coming and perhaps could have better planned for that eventuality.  

Given these challenges at the state and federal levels, achieving our many budgetary goals in Summit County, be they increasing funding to the Red White and Blue or shielding the Summit County Sheriff’s Office from cuts, or finding dollars for stalled highway improvements, will require increased revenue, plain and simple. But this need for tax increases comes at a time when consumer sentiment on the prospects of the economy are down and we’re one bad quarter away from recession. It’s gonna take a lot of budget stretching for taxpayers and governments at all levels just to get by over the next few years.

Governments are going to have to prioritize and get creative in achieving their goals, as Paul Olsen recently correctly pointed out. Taxpayers are gonna have to do the same, resulting in the outlay of fewer dollars for goods, travel and/or services, discretionary as well as essential. Folks who wanted to buy their first house or upgrade to something better will be holding off. Folks who got over their skis buying second homes and/or other luxury goods may find themselves talking with their brokers or posting ads on Facebook Marketplace.

Even though I recognize the need for increased revenue, I’m in no way eager or in a place to pay higher taxes at this time, and I know I’m not alone in that. One need only read the Summit Daily News’ letters to the editor section to see there’s little appetite for increasing taxes to pay for government upkeep, let alone expansion. Governmental entities asking for tax increases might want to think twice in doing so now. Making such requests demonstrates a lack of understanding and/or empathy about where taxpayers are. Is there ever a good time for asking for tax increases in Colorado or across the country? Maybe if the national economy had continued on the trajectory it was on at the end of 2024, things might be different and such efforts might have a better chance. But, sadly, that’s not the world we live in now.

Without increased revenue, it’s a mystery to me how Colorado and the U.S. as a whole will meet our economic needs. Tax increases in Colorado are even more nonstarters today than they usually are. And at the federal level, the Trump administration’s economic (ahem) strategy actually calls for decreased taxation with tax revenue hypothetically replaced by tariff revenue, despite the national debt cliff we’re headed towards. Add to that, inhibiting the IRS’ ability to collect revenue and things start looking pretty bleak when it comes to meeting basic needs across the country.

Tony Jones' column "Everything in Moderation" publishes biweekly on Thursdays in the Summit Daily News. Jones is a veteran of the IT industry and has worked in the public and private sectors. He lives part-time in Summit County and Denver. Contact him at eimsummit@gmail.com.