Economy & Jobs
State Fiscal Policy
Energy Policy
Education
Health Care
Immigration
Gun Rights
The Constitution
ECONOMY & JOBS
A vibrant economy requires creating a business friendly culture in which businesses can grow and thrive. Only thriving businesses create permanent, long-term jobs. History has shown that when the tax rate is low businesses are free to invest and grow their businesses creating jobs. However, when tax rates become too high, businesses often lay-off employees and may leave one state for another so that they can have a more profitable business. This creates job loss. This is one of the reasons why Colorado is losing jobs. Recent Democrat policies have created an unfriendly business environment through higher taxes and excessive regulations. Recently Amazon Affiliates and multiple oil and gas companies have closed down their operations in this State moving their companies and projects to other states with lower tax rates thus eliminating high paying jobs. In the oil and gas industry alone, thousands of high paying jobs have been eliminated.
Cutting taxes is often an effective way of increasing tax revenues. While this sounds counter-intuitive, when more people are employed, more people are paying taxes, more businesses are paying taxes and there is a larger tax base, and therefore everyone pays less taxes.
The Colorado jobless rate has failed to improve. Currently the unemployment rate in Colorado is 8.2%. The Democrat policies have failed to address the unemployment rate. An unprecedented number of people are now on unemployment, and the unemployment fund is going bankrupt—a fact that has received little attention this year.
Creating jobs and restoring our economy will require state fiscal policy that is business friendly such as those identified in Kaarl Hoopes' 4-point plan. Kaarl Hoopes' plan calls for: 1) maintaining a low tax rate, 2) creating a sensible regulatory environment, 3) making credit more readily available to business, and 4) protecting local businesses from the over-reaching of the federal government that mandates policies that create hardship for businesses. For example, the health care mandate from the federal government requires Colorado businesses to purchase health care for all employees. The additional overhead will force businesses to lay off workers to stay afloat. Big Corporations like McDonalds are already asking for exemptions.
Kaarl Hoopes believes that State fiscal policy should:
• Promote economic growth through business friendly policies and sensible regulation.
• Prevent excessive taxation. Kaarl has signed the Colorado Union of Taxpayers pledge not to raise taxes. He supports the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and does not support the unconstitutional raising of "fees" as a way to increase taxes without a vote of the people.
• Control spending and exercise fiscal restraint. Kaarl believes that the State should focus on the core functions of government and restrain the growth of government and government spending.
• Create a balanced, transparent and accountable budget
• Not penalize earnings and investments.
• Kaarl Hoopes believes in creating a "rainy day" fund to have reserves in case of an emergency.
• Focus on core government functions and look for areas where the state can move the production and delivery of public goods and services from the public to the private sector.
States that have experimented with privatization have realized tremendous savings while improving the core functions of government.
In 2005 for example, Florida became the first state to fully privatize its child welfare programs. Indiana contracted out food service at state prisons saving taxpayers $12 million per year. Chicago took in $1.8 billion by leasing the Chicago Skyway (an eight-mile stretch of toll road) to a consortium of investors.
ENERGY POLICY
Kaarl Hoopes supports the development of all of Colorado's energy resources including oil, gas, wind, solar, and geothermal. He favors incentives, not mandates in developing energy solutions. Sensible revisions to the oil/gas regulations are necessary to protect jobs while preserving the environment and providing a cheap source of energy.
Kaarl Hoopes does not support energy mandates but incentives. He is not in favor of Cap & Trade legislation. He believes that this will cause home and commercial energy costs to sky-rocket and raise the price of products that use energy for their production.
EDUCATION
In spite of attempts at reforms, education in this state is still in great need of reform to improve academic performance and graduation rates. Experience in this and other states points to the fact that throwing money at the problem has failed to improve academic performance.
Research shows that there is a direct relationship between graduation rates and earning power. There is also a direct relationship between earning power, education and poverty. A recent study conducted by the National Center for School Engagement shows that it costs taxpayers in Colorado $200,000 in public services over the lifetime of an individual for every student that does not graduate--not to mention the loss of earning power from unmet potential over the lifetime of the person. It makes both moral and financial sense to reform education.
Currently 23% of children under 18 are in poverty in District 32. Education can make the difference in living in poverty and achieving one's full potential. Graduation rates are still low in our state and district with only a 74.6% graduation average overall and only a 57% graduation rate for Hispanic males.
Kaarl Hoopes' plan calls for education reforms that will increase parental choice and education options. Money should follow the students and not the schools. One size does not fit all for our students. States that have experimented with these types of reforms (Florida, for example) have seen major gains in academic achievement and lower costs. A free market model will create competition, lowering costs and providing a higher quality education. Kaarl Hoopes also supports merit pay for excellent teachers to reward performance.
Kaarl Hoopes supports the development of new Charter Schools in Colorado.
Recently the incumbent has pointed to legislation that he says invests in Colorado's Schools. However these bills do little for our students' academic achievement.
Education Reform Bills in Summary
08-1335 is the Building Excellent Schools Today (Best) bill that consolidated funding sources to increase capital construction at public schools.
10-1333 Costs $1 million in federal grant money and ARRA money, increases state employees by 1.6 FTE to create a new 2-year pilot program to provide job training for the wind, solar, renewable energy, and energy efficiency industries.
09-228 removed the cap on government spending limitations allowing for program expansions and growth in government spending limitations allowing for growth in government employment.
08-073 requires college textbook publishers to provide the faculty member or person in charge of selecting course materials with information about the price to the bookstore, the kinds of revisions in new texts and whether the text is available in a different format.
Kaarl Hoopes believes that only one of these measures actually helps schools –the BEST measure, which provides capital construction funding to public schools. The other measures all expanded and increased government involvement in the lives of Coloradans—government regulations or requirements, the number of people working for the government or the amount the government spends or is allowed to spend. None of these "investments" have done one thing to help Colorado's economy and few if any of these investments have actually helped our children in the classroom.
Kaarl Hoopes will fight for real education reform!
HEALTHCARE
Kaarl Hoopes will work to improve access to healthcare and to make health insurance affordable for Coloradans. He believes that the best method of accomplishing this is not through federal mandates but through free market solutions. Kaarl Hoopes believes that free market solutions will provide the best solutions for the best price as insurance companies compete for customers. Kaarl Hoopes believes that a better approach is to let consumers get tax credits for health insurance and allow them to manage their own health care dollars.
Kaarl Hoopes believes that healthcare reform must include tort reform. Doctors currently practice defensive medicine because of testing protocol requirements from the medical malpractice and health insurance companies that support them.
Kaarl also believes that de-regulation would allow Coloradans to access health insurance across state lines. This is a critical piece of the solution to improve consumer options and to lower the price of insurance. One size does not fit all and consumers should be able to purchase the services that are right for them.
Regulations should also allow groups of consumers to form consortiums to spread the risk and purchase insurance at more affordable rates. For example, small business owners may find that health insurance is unaffordable when buying an individual policy, but by coming together in a consortium with other small businesses, they are able to spread the risk and lower costs.
More on the Federal Mandate for Health Insurance
Kaarl Hoopes does not believe that the federal government can constitutionally mandate the purchase of health insurance and does not support the federal mandate. Kaarl supports Attorney General Suthers in his lawsuit against the federal government. Healthcare is not one of the enumerated powers of the federal government specified in the Constitution. The federal government has claimed that healthcare can be regulated by the Commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution that governs interstate commerce. This is a fallacious argument because the Commerce clause regulates economic activity, not inactivity. Requiring someone to purchase healthcare who does not want to purchase healthcare is regulating inactivity.
IMMIGRATION
Kaarl Hoopes is in favor of legal immigration, but is not in favor of illegal entry into the U.S.
He supports the enforcement of federal and state immigration law. We should secure our borders to protect U.S. citizens from the terrorism that is taking place in our border states brought about by drug cartels and drug trafficking.
Kaarl is in favor of guest worker programs in hospitality, agriculture, and the ski industry to assist businesses in obtaining needed employees for seasonal jobs where American workers can not be found.
Kaarl Hoopes is also in favor of using e-Verify to help businesses verify the citizenship of potential employees.
With a $1.1 billion shortfall in the State budget, the administration is looking for areas to cut in order to balance the budget (as required by the Colorado Constitution.)
The Federation for American Immigration Reform has looked at the costs of illegal immigration to Coloradans and has determined that it costs approximately $1 Billion annually:
Education – Costs taxpayers $925 million on educating children of illegal aliens and another $68 million on programs for limited English speaking children.
Healthcare – Costs taxpayers $82 million per year net cost after crediting compensation from the federal government. Additionally Coloradans who have medical insurance pay higher medical insurance bills to help cover the costs of those without insurance.
Incarceration – Costs more than $38 million per year. This estimate is a net amount after deducting compensation received from the federal government. It does not include short term detention costs, related law enforcement and judicial expenditures for the monetary impact of the crimes that result in incarceration.
GUN RIGHTS
Kaarl Hoopes supports the full right of U.S. citizens to bear arms as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution.
THE CONSTITUTION
Kaarl Hoopes believes that the American Constitution is as relevant today as it was when the framers of wrote it. He believes that the Constitution should be used as the basis for making laws and the basis of all legal decisions. He is not in favor of judges legislating from the bench.