Late Friday afternoon we had a couple loyal readers forward us a rambling missive from Liberal Loon Carol Hedges. (Thanks for the tips and the analysis. We always appreciate good intelligence from our readers — [email protected])

Hedges is the self-styled empress of higher taxes and bigger government in Colorado. She also is the sponsor of an initiative headed to the ballot in 2011 that would increase sales and property taxes.

At least she used to be the sponsor of an initiative that is headed to the ballot in 2011. In her rambling e-mail diatribe, Hedges threw the door open to compromising with a tax-hike author of equal stamina and staying power, Boulder liberal Rollie Heath. Frankly, it sounds like she would settle for a tax hike compromise with anyone else who's willing to play ball.

Heath, as readers of this site know, proposed a tax hike of his own that, while less ambitious than that proposed by Carol Hedges, is still very ambitious. Hers would kill the economy. His would simply kill thousands of jobs.

The telltale tip that Hedges is hedging on her tax hike proposal is that throughout the email she refers to her initiative as a "test".

Uh huh, sure Carol.

All your tax hike machinations were really only about helping find out how someone else could get a tax hike through title setting onto the ballot.

Sure.
 

Most of this is inside baseball truffle shuffling, something at which Hedges excels. One truth from the long-winded email does appear, and it is that Carol Hedges apparently lacks the political guts to pursue her quest for higher taxes alone.

That is a good thing.

But all this talk of compromise also makes us wary because we know there are a lot of "business" leaders who are pre-wired to get sucked into compromises with liberal spenders like Hedges. Referendum C, Right to Work, and Bill Ritter's election in 2006 all come to mind as examples.

Thus, we cheer Hedges decision to give up and walk away from her "test" (haha) tax hike. But we urge conservatives in the Capitol to keep their eyes peeled for another unseemly tax compromise between Hedges and the fiscal chameleons who gave us Referendum C and the election of Bill Ritter.