True leadership demands ability to compromise

Colorado’s government is broke.

Not only are we out of money, but our legislators seem to have forgotten why they spend the winter in Denver. They are supposed to work together for the benefit of all residents of our fair state. Instead, they’ve turned the Capitol into a rugby scrum, with each party more concerned with inflicting pre-primary damage on the other than finding real solutions to our most pressing problems.

Take the bruising debate over business tax exemptions. Gov. Bill Ritter, who gave up re-election to fight the hard budget battle, set Feb. 11 as the deadline for action on a package of bills removing or suspending tax breaks for a variety of industries. From online retailers to candymakers, there’s some pain for everyone, and as modified through the legislative process, more suspensions than repeals.

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We believe that tax breaks are a viable means to attract and encourage growth of specific industries, to create jobs for our citizens and wealth for our business owners. And robust business will be the engine that drives us out of the Great Recession.

But such stimulus measures should become neither permanent nor sacrosanct. In such economic times, everyone – business, government and individuals – has to give up something.

Witnesses testifying against the bills swore that paying 3 percent more in taxes for three to five years would be a “job-killer” for their particular industries. As if businesses throughout the state had not eliminated 100,000 jobs in the past year with the exemptions in place. They’ve reduced their individual payrolls, but their ex-workers are, for the most part, still residents of the state, still using basic services, and now in need of additional assistance – on the taxpayers’ dime.

State Republicans have offered a counterproposal: Instead of using a scalpel throughout the budget, take a machete to all state payrolls, this year and next. While we strongly agree that spending cuts must be part of the budget-balancing process, the proposal offers no specifics on where or how to reduce salaries without reducing services.

In yet another exemption, teachers’ pay would be spared the ax. But that could leave Colorado’s two highest-paid employees untouched: College football coaches Steve Fairchild and Dan Hawkins, who haul down annual salaries of $800,000 and $1.1 million, respectively. Would cutting those paychecks be more of a job-killer than raising the price of a dollar candy bar to $1.03? Really?

Let’s start acting like we are all in this together.