Speaker 1: Let's talk to a woman who is part of the
Speaker 1: Joint Budget Committee. She is State Senator Barb Kirkmeyer. Barb,
Speaker 1: you look well rested. You look like you caught up
Speaker 1: on your sleek a little bit, a little bit, So
Speaker 1: what did the legislature inflict on Coloraden's what did you?
Speaker 2: What did you guys? Do we increase this tax We
Speaker 2: increase taxes? Well I didn't.
Speaker 3: The Democrats and the legislature increased taxes. They took away
Speaker 3: a fee that we pay small businesses retaillers who collect
Speaker 3: our sales tax We took away that fee, that's the
Speaker 3: tune of twelve thousand dollars. It wasn't enough in the
Speaker 3: first place to pay them to collect our sales taxes.
Speaker 3: Typically it costs them about forty eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: We took away twelve.
Speaker 3: So now they're putting the bill themselves to collect our taxes.
Speaker 3: And we're selling two hundred and fifty million dollars worth
Speaker 3: of tax credits for two hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2: So we're shortening ourselves fifty million dollars.
Speaker 3: And you know that's it increase taxes by about two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million dollars. We're shorten ourselves by fifty
Speaker 3: million dollars in the general fund on the cell of
Speaker 3: tax credits, and we screwed over.
Speaker 2: Small businesses yet again.
Speaker 1: Wait, but they're making sure that planned parenthead gets more money.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, well that's true. Yes, that was in there. Okay,
Speaker 2: So Barb, I mean we did.
Speaker 3: We did extend the AI bill, the deadline in AI
Speaker 3: artificial intelligence. We extended that to June first of next year.
Speaker 3: So that's a good thing. That was one good thing
Speaker 3: that happened.
Speaker 2: So I actually voted for that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about where we are budget wise right now.
Speaker 1: Because the tax increases that you're talking about on small businesses,
Speaker 1: there's a zero percent chance that we're not going to
Speaker 1: see some kind of lawsuits against that. Michael Fields at
Speaker 1: Advance Colorado has already said he's going to add it
Speaker 1: to his lawsuit about other things that violate TABOR.
Speaker 2: So what does that mean? I mean, let's just say.
Speaker 1: A judge puts an injunction on on you know, collecting
Speaker 1: those taxes. What does that mean for our budget right
Speaker 1: this second?
Speaker 3: It means we will be Right now, we are seven
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars in the red to start the next
Speaker 3: budget year, So we have to find that money to
Speaker 3: start even in the next budget year because.
Speaker 2: We have to have balanced budgets.
Speaker 3: So to start off a budget, you've got to have
Speaker 3: a budget that you can close out that's balanced as well,
Speaker 3: and those are that's a constitutional mandate.
Speaker 2: So we had that already in play. That was in
Speaker 2: June eighteenth. We already knew that.
Speaker 3: And then you know, with the passage of HR one,
Speaker 3: which gave us federal tax relief, and because our state
Speaker 3: tax code is tied to the federal tax code, essentially
Speaker 3: when they make changes, it changes ours, we also got
Speaker 3: one point two billion dollars worth of tax relief at
Speaker 3: the state level. So what that ended up doing is
Speaker 3: causing a seven hundred million dollars shortfall, a gap in
Speaker 3: this current fiscal year of tax revenues tax collections, and
Speaker 3: so we were trying to fill the gap. That's what
Speaker 3: we were supposed to be doing. Now, there was nothing
Speaker 3: in the call, which the governor gets to set. Think
Speaker 3: of it as the agenda for the special session. Nothing
Speaker 3: in there that said we could carry any legislation, carry
Speaker 3: a bill to reduce spending. All it was was to
Speaker 3: increase taxes, sell tax credits, and like I said, it's
Speaker 3: screw small businesses out of that fee.
Speaker 1: So where we and you you already we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before, but we're looking at a deficit for next year.
Speaker 1: And was that deficit in place before HR one passed,
Speaker 1: because weren't we offered Yeah, I mean, all of this
Speaker 1: is yes, okay.
Speaker 3: So and then what HR one did is it impacted
Speaker 3: our tax collections because our taxes are going down at
Speaker 3: the state, so we're getting federal tax relief. We're getting
Speaker 3: some state tax relief still to the tune of one
Speaker 3: point two billion dollars. And what that did is it
Speaker 3: increased our you know, they keep calling it revenues.
Speaker 2: Is tax collections.
Speaker 3: Our revenues equal taxes, right, so it's the taxes you
Speaker 3: pay in or our revenues at the state. So our
Speaker 3: tax collections went down as a result of the tax
Speaker 3: breaks at the federal level.
Speaker 2: And the Democrats are so upset.
Speaker 3: God, we had to have a special session just to
Speaker 3: come back and increase some taxes back. So what they
Speaker 3: did is they increased it back from what I was
Speaker 3: trying to figure out. I mean, don't anybody go quote
Speaker 3: me on this number. But it's about two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty two hundred and fifty three million dollars to try
Speaker 3: and fill that gap.
Speaker 2: Well, the gap was.
Speaker 3: Seven hundred million or more right somewhere in there. So
Speaker 3: now the discussion is going to be tomorrow. The Joint
Speaker 3: Budget Committee is meeting with the governor and he has
Speaker 3: you know, executive order privileges, and he's going to reduce
Speaker 3: spending supposedly, And I hear he's going to reduce spending.
Speaker 2: This is what I hear.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, I'm a Republican. It's not
Speaker 3: like he comes to talk to me about it and
Speaker 3: tells me. But what I'm hearing is he's going to
Speaker 3: reduce spending by cutting Medicaid provider rates, which will effectively
Speaker 3: cut access for over one point two billion people in.
Speaker 2: Our state that are US citizens.
Speaker 3: And he's going to do that, and he's going to
Speaker 3: cut higher EDG and then what I'm hearing is, well,
Speaker 3: we will probably take a third of that. So he's
Speaker 3: going to do those kind of cuts up to two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million approximately again my guess, and then
Speaker 3: the last third of our gap, he's going to take
Speaker 3: out the reserves, which I just have to tell you.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure you can all hear the frustration
Speaker 3: of my voice, because it is totally stupid.
Speaker 2: To take money out of the reserves.
Speaker 3: When we take money out of the reserves in this
Speaker 3: current fiscal year, we have a statutory reserve requirement of
Speaker 3: fifteen percent.
Speaker 2: We just have to replace it in this fiscal year.
Speaker 2: It does nothing for us other than to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're making it look good.
Speaker 3: But really, by the time we get into March of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, you're gonna have to replace that because
Speaker 3: we have to have a balanced budget before I can
Speaker 3: before we can introduce the next budget.
Speaker 2: That's how crazy it is.
Speaker 3: And then on top of it all, they sold tax credits,
Speaker 3: so instead of pausing the tax credits.
Speaker 2: You know, tax credits are tax relief.
Speaker 3: So generally Republicans, myself included, we support a lot of
Speaker 3: tech credits, not all of them, but we do support
Speaker 3: a lot of tax credits. So tax credits are tax relief. Okay, well,
Speaker 3: we have over two billion dollars worth of tax credits
Speaker 3: that we give out. Okay, we just fell below the
Speaker 3: tabor cap, which.
Speaker 2: Means we now have no surplus.
Speaker 3: There isn't going to be any tabor refund because there
Speaker 3: is no surplus. So instead of pausing tax credits, those
Speaker 3: goofballs down there said no, no, no, We're going to
Speaker 3: sell two hundred and fifty million dollars worth of tax
Speaker 3: credits for two hundred million dollars. So when they catch
Speaker 3: it in their tax credits sometime in the future when
Speaker 3: we have surplus, there's.
Speaker 2: A constant's fifty million bucks.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me clarify what Marv just said, because we
Speaker 1: start talking about this and people are like, I cannot
Speaker 1: keep up. But in order to eliminate taber refunds, this
Speaker 1: is just my take on this, and you can correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm totally wrong, in order to eliminate taber refunds,
Speaker 1: so they could then argue with the ballot box the
Speaker 1: taber is used with anyway, so why do we even
Speaker 1: have it, So then we would take any spending protections
Speaker 1: off of the legislature. They have reallocated all of our
Speaker 1: table refunds using tax credits to other favored groups in
Speaker 1: their minds, maybe it's an expanded earned income tax credit,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's other kinds of tax credits that our table
Speaker 1: refunds are going to go fund. What Barb is saying,
Speaker 1: is why not just do away with those tax credits
Speaker 1: until we have a surplus again? Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Correct? And we didn't even have to get rid of
Speaker 2: all the tax credits we have.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know some I mean I don't know
Speaker 3: if I voted for the earned income tax credit, but
Speaker 3: I probably would. I mean, those are the least you know,
Speaker 3: people who can't afford things in our state, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: they're the most vulnerable among us. I mean, they're below
Speaker 3: sixty thousand approximate LAYD dollars in income that's coming in,
Speaker 3: and you know, I don't. I mean, they're probably not
Speaker 3: really paying that many taxes in the first place.
Speaker 2: But let's give them a tax holiday. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2: But you're right.
Speaker 3: They turned tax credits. They turned our table refunds into
Speaker 3: tax credits for everyone else, and we have over two
Speaker 3: billion of them. All they need to do is pause
Speaker 3: seven hundred million dollars worth of them.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: So somebody just hit the text line Barb and said, Mandy,
Speaker 1: does Barb Kirkmeyer have any comment on the millions of
Speaker 1: dollars of state funded taxpayer grants to legislator run nonprofits?
Speaker 1: And NGOs run by people like Javier Mabriy, Lorena Garcia
Speaker 1: or others. I just saw a stat on X and
Speaker 1: I have not had a chance to look into that stat,
Speaker 1: but it showed how much money was flowing to these NGOs,
Speaker 1: and that is a concerning thing because that starts to
Speaker 1: feel like a slush fund. And we've seen at the
Speaker 1: federal level that Democrats are very unhappy when their NGOs
Speaker 1: stop getting money, not because they're doing anything great, but
Speaker 1: because they're kind of, you know, a circular way to
Speaker 1: circulate more money into Democrat pockets. Is there a chance
Speaker 1: that any of that is happening here?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I've seen the same things out on X that
Speaker 3: have been being posted.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm not in session right now.
Speaker 3: And plus then we had to do the special session stuff.
Speaker 2: But I'm not in a regular session.
Speaker 3: But when I get back into the Joint Budget Committee
Speaker 3: come November, I'm going to start looking into that.
Speaker 2: And so my email is very easy. It's capital S. E. N.
Speaker 3: Sen Kirkmeyer k I R K M E Y E
Speaker 3: R at gmail dot com. Send me the information you
Speaker 3: have so I don't have to keep digging all by myself,
Speaker 3: and I'll start wherever you left off and see what
Speaker 3: I can find out, because that not only sounds like
Speaker 3: a conflict of interest to me, it sounds highly unethical
Speaker 3: that we are funding I saw the stuff about Representative
Speaker 3: Garcia on online, and it sounds highly unethical that we
Speaker 3: are funding a state legislator to the tune of millions
Speaker 3: of dollars for her and her family through what's called
Speaker 3: a non governmental organization, a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 2: Essentially.
Speaker 3: I don't know what that nonprofit organization is doing for us,
Speaker 3: but what I do know is we need to start
Speaker 3: cutting in this state, and maybe that's the first place
Speaker 3: we should start.
Speaker 1: Senator Barb Kirkmeyer, from your lips to the governor's ears,
Speaker 1: we both know it's not going to go the way
Speaker 1: we want it to. But I appreciate you and your
Speaker 1: fellow Republicans trying in a special session where the Democrats
Speaker 1: did everything but tell you to shut up and sit down.
Speaker 1: It was, of course they did. Let's talk again soon, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, thanks for