The legislative session is full of bad ideas, and they come from all directions. But we have to say this year’s winning bad idea has to be awarded to a bill that would create a state run retirement plan for private sector employees. 
House Bill 1290, sponsored by recently announced candidate for CD 7 Rep. Brittany Pettersen, sets up the “Colorado Secure Savings Plan” and establishes a new state board to run it.
This idea was first floated in 2014 and went nowhere after strong opposition from State Treasurer Walker Stapleton. He has been outspoken on the massive unfunded liability incurred by the state’s Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA), and quipped at the time: “We should start by turning the titanic away from the iceberg before we start placing more passengers on the ship.”
And we couldn’t agree more. Given that taxpayers will be on the hook for PERA’s $26 billion hole, do we really need to create an identical program that now forces private sector employees to participate? It’s like Democrats have never heard the cliché that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.