The difference between Walker Stapleton and Jared Polis is stark.

As governor, Stapleton wants us to keep our wallets chained to our pocket while he keeps the state operating in a fiscally responsible manner, and without raising taxes.

Meanwhile, Polis is prepared for a wild spending spree with more of our money he plans to pickpocket from our paychecks.

And the money he can’t get ahold of through taxes, he’s going to force us to spend on our monthly bills for heat and electricity.

Don’t just take our word for it, the record and rhetoric of each candidate backs this assertion.

As the Denver Post points out in a recent profile on Stapleton’s “crusade for fiscal responsibility,” Stapleton spent eight years “sounding the alarm over the long-term solvency of Colorado’s public employees pension plan.”

And this:

The state treasurer also traveled Colorado prominently in 2013 to warn voters off a proposed income tax hike for education. Three years later, he trained his cross hairs on a ballot proposal that would usher in “ColoradoCare,” a $36 billion single-payer health care system. Both times, voters overwhelmingly heeded the calls.

Then there’s Polis’s record as a tax and spend liberal.

Polis voted for Obamacare, including the enormous tax on those who couldn’t afford to buy it.

Now it appears Polis may have actually profited off that vote with his investments in a health care tourism company that takes patients out of the country to get affordable health care that Obamacare does not provide.

Polis voted against the recent tax cuts and tax reform, and he’s rarely met a spending bill he didn’t like — except for the one that included needed pay raises for our military.

Ironically, some of the very same waste and taxes Stapleton crusaded against, Polis is vowing to implement if elected governor.

Too bad the blue book doesn’t include that.