Twitter is mental flatulence

Mark Hillman

Kudos to David Harsanyi for his excellent column, “C’mon, admit it.  Twitter is useless.”

To this point, I’ve found Twitter so aggressively worthless that I was forced to research exactly what I was missing. In the process, I stumbled across a useful New York Times tech column penned by David Pogue that clarified all. The headline read, “Twitter? It’s What You Make It.”

In summation, like your beloved pet rock, Twitter is useful only in your imagination.

He won’t be accused of this often, but in this case, David is much too kind. (more…)

Supreme Court’s power grab might backfire

Mark Hillman

In an audacious power grab, the Colorado Supreme Court recently embraced, by a 4-3 decision, a judicial doctrine that would relegate the other two branches of government — and the voters — to a perfunctory role.

The high court’s activist majority used Lobato vs. State not only to intrude on the legislature’s constitutional authority to determine funding for public schools; it also self-servingly suggested that no policy decision is off-limits to judicial review. (more…)

Health mandate: Kiss your money and your freedom goodbye

Mark Hillman

Talk about personal responsibility is cheap. Legislating personal responsibility isn’t.  Take the movement to require everyone to purchase government-approved health insurance.

If at first this seems like a reasonable requirement necessary to reduce cost shifting by those who do not pay their own fare, then step back and think again.  The damage caused by such a mandate is far greater than the problem it purports to solve. (more…)

Obama’s dangerously deluded foreign policy

Mark Hillman

Say what you will about Bill Clinton’s foreign policy shortcomings, but for the most part he had the good sense not to squander Ronald Reagan’s legacy of peace through strength.

By contrast, Barack Obama’s foreign policy seems to be predicated on a boundless faith in his own persuasive powers and the naïve notion that our international antagonists are merely misunderstood. Not since Jimmy Carter has American foreign policy been so obsequious or short-sighted. (more…)

Congress makes IRS look compassionate

Mark Hillman

One of the best policies instituted by the Republican Congress that came to power in the 1994 election was dialing back the Internal Revenue Service’s auditing capacity and giving taxpayers a break for honest mistakes.

However, as James M. Peaslee explained in the Wall Street Journal, the Democrat Congress has inexplicably put a bullseye on taxpayers, even for good-faith mistakes, and taken away the IRS’ ability to waive penalties, making the tax collectors look like nice guys compared to hatchet-wielding Democrats: (more…)

Know the facts about ObamaCare

Mark Hillman

Last week, NBC News claimed that the flagging support for ObamaCare was due to “[M]isperceptions about the president’s plans for reform … that nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue.”  Fortunately, Heritage Foundation took the trouble to fact check the fact-checkers at NBC.

So, when our teleprompted President or scripted Democrat lawmakers like Betsy Markey tell you that Obamacare won’t:

  • Provide health benefits to illegal immigrants,
  • Lead to a government takeover of the health care system,
  • Use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, or
  • Allow government to ration health care

You can be well armed with hard facts simply by following the documentation provided by Heritage.

Budget study should focus on big picture

Mark Hillman

It’s becoming a ritual at the State Capitol: a committee is meeting to study the competing pressures of spending mandates and spending limits on the state budget.  Like those before them, this year’s panel has heard from a litany of experts and special interests, almost all of whom will complain about the Gordian knot in which the state budget is entangled.

Yes, Colorado’s budget is complicated and elected officials are often asked to make difficult, sometimes incoherent, fiscal choices.  Like it or not, the people of Colorado have, in exchange for their tax dollars, insisted on external checks and balances which sometimes become unbalanced themselves. (more…)