In what has become an almost weekly ritual Daily Sentinel columnist Bill Grant once again criticized Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry – this time for suggesting that the Legislature eliminate the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO).

In the op-ed, Mr. Grant rehashes a quote from State House Speaker Terrance Carroll in which Carroll heaps praise on GEO, calling it the “single brightest light in our economy.”

If a state government office has become the “brightest light” in Colorado’s economy then we are all in very deep trouble.

If we’ve learned anything from the ill-conceived bank and auto-industry bailouts, it is that taxpayer subsidies can only temporarily prop up an industry. If that industry cannot stand on its own two feet, it will immediately collapse when Uncle Sam (or Uncle Ritter) closes the government checkbook.

The “bright light” that the speaker and Mr. Grant refer to is not GEO or even Bill Ritter’s so-called “new energy economy.” Rather, it is the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars that GEO hands out in the name of “economic development.”

I would suggest to Mr. Grant that the Colorado economy would burn a lot brighter if those dollars were left in the pockets of the hardworking taxpayers who earned them in the first place.

MAC ZIMMERMAN
Chief of Staff
State Senate Minority Office
Denver

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