Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has two years left in his final term. He can squander it on small ball or become the star of a Democratic Party that needs a leader with a record.
If Polis phones it in the next two years, he'll slink into history as another has-been governor with no landmark legacy. To leave his mark, and open doors, he need only plow full speed ahead with his stated goal to kill Colorado's income tax.
Polis often speaks about zeroing out the income tax to center-right organizations -- including The Gazette's editorial board. He repeated this vision late last month during a "fireside chat" at the American Legislative Exchange Council's confab in Denver.
Polis discussed this at the forum alongside lifelong family friend, Reaganomics architect Arthur Laffer.
The governor partly credited himself for Colorado voters lowering the income tax from 4.63% to 4.4% with two successful ballot measures. He deserves credit for passively supporting each, while trying not to scandalize party extremists who think no tax is too high.
Although Polis leans far left on standard Democratic priorities -- he enacted the world's most permissive pre- and post-birth abortion law -- he understands money and taxes like few of his peers.
He not only grew up under the tutelage of Laffer but wrote his senior thesis at Princeton under the supervision of fiscal and cultural conservative Carol Swain, a senior fellow at the Institute for Faith & Culture. He's not the first major Democrat to understand the causes and effects of taxation.
"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the tax rates," said former Democratic President John F. Kennedy.
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When government imposes taxes on an activity, we get less of it. One can argue the merits of taxing cigarettes, liquor and recreational drugs. Yet, few could argue for tax policies that lower income -- by 4.4% or any amount.
"All taxes discourage something. Why not discourage bad things like pollution rather than good things like working or investment?" asked Lawrence Summers, former Harvard president and President Bill Clinton's secretary of the Treasury.
A study by the Tax Foundation proves that states with no income tax enjoyed twice the national economic growth rate over the past decade. All nine flourish with economic and population growth. Popular "best places" algorithms typically rank the no-tax states among or near the top 10.
This rise of no-tax states will continue, because the pandemic taught professionals they can live almost anywhere with a computer and broadband. As such, they and their money flock to no-income tax states, which consist of Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming, New Hampshire and Washington.
Our state government has money to spare. Colorado's property taxes and revenues are soaring along with housing valuations. The governor attributes the housing crisis directly to excessive regulation of housing construction, causing a shortage relative to demand. This crisis for consumers, which also must be solved, has led to annual state revenue surpluses amounting to billions.
As Laffer has proven and Kennedy surmised, lowering excessive taxation typically leads to more sustainable government revenue -- not less -- because the private sector invests it in housing, jobs and other forms of economic activities that advance humanity.
Polis should aggressively pursue his vision of creating a 10th state without an income tax. If he fails, it won't happen anytime soon. He can and should achieve this vision -- then bask in it -- before leaving office.
The Gazette Editorial Board