Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Not Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
The revenue to this fair state from oil and gas drilling has been flat, and next fiscal year will fall by a few hundred million. The governor thinks that drop is a result of falling oil and gas prices. I know that falling prices caused some drop off, but in Colorado, as opposed to other nearby states, the drop off is largely a result of the Pixie Dust Energy revolution our governor is pushing and more specifically, the changes in the drilling rules and regulations his hand picked Commission packing ploy picks made, which changes have sent drillers to other states for the foreseeable future. Because of the loss of revenue from oil and gas, and the normal drop off because of the recession, we're short a half billion for running the state next year, which is a problem for a state, now completely controlled by Democrats, which has to balance the budget each year.
So the Democrats planned to raid the reserves of the quasi Governmental workers' compensation insurance provider, called Pinnacol Assurance. The fund was fat with income from overcharged businesses (the 1991 changes in the workers' comp law and replacement of most of the Administrative Law Judges from the earlier era have caused awards in Workers' Comp to plummet, but the premiums of the insurance, well, not so much). It was a very tempting target. And to be fair, if our spending on education is below a certain point, we lose forever some considerable federal funding; so you can see some rational motive to our ever more desperate governor's plans.
Now they have backed off that plan at the same time vowing some pretty serious repercussions to Pinnacol for denying them the use of the extra money to get the fed money. We'll see if anything comes of the threat.
So the Democrats planned to raid the reserves of the quasi Governmental workers' compensation insurance provider, called Pinnacol Assurance. The fund was fat with income from overcharged businesses (the 1991 changes in the workers' comp law and replacement of most of the Administrative Law Judges from the earlier era have caused awards in Workers' Comp to plummet, but the premiums of the insurance, well, not so much). It was a very tempting target. And to be fair, if our spending on education is below a certain point, we lose forever some considerable federal funding; so you can see some rational motive to our ever more desperate governor's plans.
Now they have backed off that plan at the same time vowing some pretty serious repercussions to Pinnacol for denying them the use of the extra money to get the fed money. We'll see if anything comes of the threat.
Labels: Local Politics; Raiding Pinnacol's Ill-Gotten Gains
