Credit Owens' fiscal foresight.

• Author: Schwab, Robert

WHEEW!

More than a million people voted in the Nov. 1 election over Referenda C&D, and even they were effectively split down the middle. But just enough of Colorado voters--perhaps because of the deep involvement of Colorado business in the campaign to pass the referenda--said "yes" to a state government that had asked to keep enough of taxpayers' money over the next five years to make sure Colorado isn't deleted from the honor roll of States of the Union that are making economic progress nationwide.

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ColoradoBiz was among the commercial enterprises that endorsed the amendments, and so watching the aftermath of the election has been an exercise in joy rather than frustration. Gov. Bill Owens didn't get his credit card for road building, but you have to give him credit for standing up for the people of Colorado and their futures. Conservative Republican Owens first cut the deal with Democratic legislators to create the referenda, and then went out and campaigned as a loyal foot soldier--no CEO--for their passage.

"As the dust settles from Tuesday's election," Owens wrote in The Denver Post following the election, "it is clear that passing Referendum C was a victory for common sense and for fiscal responsibility."

Andrew Romanoff, the Democratic Speaker of the House in the General Assembly, who was identified by anti-tax, anti-government opponents of C&D as Owens' partner in crime for crafting the referenda, wrote this:

"Coloradans have chosen to invest their hard-earned dollars in education and health care .... Colorado will continue to operate under some of the strictest spending limits and one of the lowest tax rates in the nation. We should redouble our efforts to identify and eliminate waste."

And the proof of the state working toward those goals after the election came in a vote of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, whose members are appointed...