A new study from the Common Sense Institute about the growth in Colorado’s budget spirals me to this 750-word review and rant…
Here is the short version that should not be controversial. When government forgets who the customer is, the budget starts to look like a wish list for agencies instead of a roadmap for citizens. That is where Colorado has landed. A decade plus of Democratic control at the Capitol has produced a budget that feeds bureaucracy first and the basics last. The receipts are public, not partisan.
Start with the size of the beast. According to the state’s own appropriations snapshot, total FY26 appropriations clocked in at 44.03 billion dollars. That is not my number or my opinion. It is their number in black and white. Now ask what we bought with that. Adjusted for both inflation and population, state government is spending 31 percent more per Coloradan than it did in FY06. The chart on page 17 of the report is a clean punch in the nose. It shows per-person appropriations rising from 5,580 dollars to 7,308 dollars. That is not belt-tightening. That is belt popping.
Where did the money go. One department has become the gravity well of the entire budget. Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), which houses Medicaid and related programs, exploded by 459 percent over twenty years (can you say ObamaCare and virtue-signaling expenditures?), and its share of the entire state budget climbed from 21 percent to 44 percent. Those are the trend lines you get when politicians promise everything and send the bill to tomorrow.
It gets worse when you look at recent growth. Between FY26 and the Governor’s FY27 request, 81 percent of the net increase in all operating appropriations is HCPF. Read that again. Eighty-one percent of the growth is one department. That squeeze shows up as flat or negative change for others. The chart on page 8 lays it out. On the General Fund side, policymakers grew GF operating appropriations 24 percent from 14.2 billion to 17.6 billion in just three years, and HCPF gets the biggest bite again, 70 percent of its own increase. That is not a balanced diet. That is a funnel.
Now compare that to education. Over the same twenty year span, K-12 appropriations did rise in nominal terms, 106 percent, but education’s share of the pie fell from 24 percent to 17 percent. When the pie grows and your slice shrinks, you did not get a raise. You got a lecture. The General Fund picture is just as telling. From FY06 to FY26, HCPF’s GF share rose from 22 percent to 33 percent while Education’s fell from 43 percent to 28 percent. If priorities are moral documents, this one reads like a love letter to bureaucracy and a post-it note to classrooms.
The crowd that built this machine will point to TABOR and say the refunds prove taxpayers are not suffering. Nice try. The forecast shows Coloradans are projected to receive refunds in FY25, FY27, and FY28, with nearly 1.97 billion dollars cumulatively. There is even a year where revenue sits 215 million below the cap. That is not proof of restraint. That is proof TABOR is doing its job as the emergency brake while the driver keeps flooring the gas.
Meanwhile, the state payroll keeps stretching. Over the last ten years, full-time equivalent positions grew from 55,700 to 67,275. That is a 21.1 percent jump. Transportation, the thing people associate with potholes and time lost in traffic, basically flatlined on staffing, while the Treasury Department more than doubled.
What does all this add up to? A budget that rewards programs for growing rather than performing, that relies on federal dollars like a sugar high, and that sidelines core services in favor of sprawling health entitlements that the state cannot control and barely steers. On pages 10 and 11 you can see who actually eats the budget. The top five departments eat roughly four-fifths of the whole. HCPF sits at the head of the table every single time.
Let me be fair and steelman the Democratic argument. Medicaid grows because health care is expensive, the feds match dollars, and Colorado cares about vulnerable neighbors (whether they are here legally or not). All true. In a downturn, HCPF can even provide automatic stabilizers that keep families afloat. No one seriously wants sick kids or seniors thrown off a cliff. But compassion without management is not a virtue. It is negligence. When one department’s growth crowds out education, public safety, and roads, you are not choosing compassion. You are choosing imbalance.
So what now. We need a reset from priorities by vibes to priorities by outcomes.
First, cap the automatic autopilot. Tie HCPF growth to realistic caseload and medical inflation, not wish lists. Require quarterly reviews that force the department to reconcile projected to actual enrollment and benefits changes. If you are going to eat 81 percent of the new food in the pantry, you better show your work.
Second, firewall a share of the General Fund for K-12 and core infrastructure so the basics do not get squeezed every time a federal rule changes. The data show education’s share falling over time while the total pie got bigger. Lock in a floor for classrooms and asphalt.
Third, publish a true per-pupil and per-lane-mile spending dashboard that updates monthly. If we can show per-capita appropriations across the whole government, we can certainly show how much actually hits kids and commuters. The report already calculates per Coloradan. Now do it where people live and drive.
Fourth, audit every program that grew faster than population and inflation over the last decade. If you cannot prove real outcomes, sunset it. This is not cruelty. This is stewardship. Government spending has clearly outpaced both inflation and headcount. The chart says so.
Fifth, stop gimmicking TABOR. If lawmakers truly believe they need more money, make the case honestly to the voters. Otherwise, treat refunds as the covenant they are, a promise that government remembers whose money this is. The forecasted refund years and totals are public. Keep faith with them.
Sixth, move transportation and public safety out of the budget basement. You cannot keep flat staffing in a department that maintains the arteries of the economy and expect no heart attack. The FTE data show exactly where the body is gaining and where it is starving. Feed muscle, not bloat.
Seventh, restore a real rainy day fund discipline. The appropriations flow chart reminds us how many mouths are at the trough and how many funding buckets get tapped. Before adding new obligations, set aside a strict percentage until the reserve hits a responsible target.
Finally, demand zero based budgeting in any department growing faster than 10 percent year over year. If a program cannot justify its base, it does not deserve its increase. And no, “we spent it last year” is not a justification. It is a confession.
None of this is magic. It is just adulting. The Democrats at the Capitol have created an environment that confuses moral preening with measurable progress. The numbers show skewed priorities and out-of-control growth. If you like bigger government for its own sake, congratulations. You got it. For the rest of us, it is time to turn the lights on, read the bills, and fix the incentives. And for once, a budget that chooses people over bureaucracy.
