Members from both parties in the state legislature announced a new stimulus proposal Wednesday.
Republican Leaders Hugh McKean and Chris Holbert outlined the GOP’s priorities of job creation, getting kids back to school, and fixing aging infrastructure.
Minority Leader Chris Holbert just outlined the GOP priorities for stimulus funds at a bipartisan press conference.
🛠 Get People Back to Work
👧 Get Kids Back to School
🚧 Fix Our Roads and BridgesLet’s get to work. #COpolitics pic.twitter.com/wDsheDge1s
— Colorado Senate Republicans (@ColoSenGOP) March 10, 2021
Ironically, the reason the legislature is now forced to consider an extraordinary stimulus measure this spring is because Gov. Polis drove the economy into an incredibly deep ditch.
Colorado’s economy completely cratered following Polis’s foolish decision to issue another shutdown order just after Thanksgiving.
Unemployment shot up to 8.4% in December, a figure that ranks among the worst statewide jobless rates in the entire country.
“It appears the on-again, off-again efforts to find a balance between the economy and the number of COVID-19 cases killed the economy from an employment perspective,” a Broomfield based economist said several weeks ago.
Remarkably, Colorado’s overall employment recovery is actually the worst in the entire continental U.S., according to WalletHub.
Whether these stimulus measures will rescue the economy from the Polis Ditch remains to be seen.
However, it’s worthwhile to remember the only reason we’re having this conversation at all in the legislature is because Polis’s second shutdown order disgracefully deprived tens of thousands of Coloradans of their job, income, and dignity.