The Big Con, Colorado Style

One of the conservative movement's favorite talking points is the one about government spending and government waste. They pretend to be penny pinchers, and hold up Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights as an example of such frugality as public policy. Except, what you see here is that they want frugality applied to everyone but themselves.

You can rub your eyes all you want, but rest assured you read that correctly: The author of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights actually tried to make the State of Colorado pay him for time he said he was not serving in the legislature. He was trying to avoid serving so that he could evade Colorado term limits, yet he wanted the state to pay him for that time he wasn't serving.

So Mr. Fiscal Conservative tried to make the state government pay him a handout for time he was not working. Welcome to the Big Con, Colorado style.