VOICES Money doesn’t grow on trees

Government cannot do everything. at sentence is a popular truism on the political right. It is correct for a very practical reason. e government does not have an endless supply of money. Money for government projects does eventually dry up once those funds are exhausted. Budgets have limits. Of course, there are some who would like for the government to do more with more money from the public. But if taxes are raised to sky-high levels, then some will feel disincentivized to earn money. at ultimately serves no end because tax revenues would then dry up. Tax money does not grow on trees, it is generated by the work and sweat that citizens toil under to provide for themselves.

When I started to write this series of opinion pieces on the budget I did it with the intention of sharing something that Je erson County and

NICHOLAS DWORK, ARVADA

As much as many of us worry about the possibility of future extreme global warming, we are currently permitting our food, water and air to be damaged without consequence. We are permitting ourselves and our children to be poisoned with hardly any notice at all. Consider our air. You may have thought that leaded gasoline, which poisons our air and leads to brain damage in children, was made illegal long ago. But you’d be wrong. It was made illegal for land vehicles but remains legal for airplanes. For example, Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Jefferson county sells leaded gasoline; it is the 63rd worst lead-emitting airport in the country! After a 2021 study found a signi cant correlation between the amount of lead in children in surrounding neighborhoods and distance to a lead-emitting airport , over 35 healthcare professionals wrote a letter to Je erson County commissioners asking them to address this issue. In response, Paul Anslow — director of RMMA — complained that only sell-

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JOE WEBB Columnist

Colorado does that has a large impact on your lives as citizens. I could have written much more than I have. Zerobased budgeting is a particular pet peeve of mine because it forces unnecessary and unwarranted governmental expenditures to occur because revenues and expenditures must always be equal. I wanted to share how unfunded mandates from both the federal and state government crowd out the budgetary choices that should only belong to our elected o cials here in Je erson County and Colorado.

I am on the political right. I think the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) is a good thing. I believe that government should restrain its spending and think about what it spends seriously and with deliberation. I am not someone who thinks that those on the lower rungs of America’s economic ladder should be left in benign neglect. Government does indeed take care of the less fortunate in our society but they cannot do a perfect job of it. Private charity then steps up to augment where government assistance leaves o . ose who contribute towards the many wonderful and varied private charities within our state contribute their money in the hopes of assisting Colorado’s less fortunate. ose charities and donors deserve a hearty thank you from all of us because they make the lives of the less fortunate in Colorado better. In fact, what they do is keep budgets from becoming larger than they already currently are. May it always be so that generosity is extended by good individuals that desire to