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In 1982, Martha and I attended the local Democrats' annual dinner, where State Treasurer Roy Romer talked briefly.
A new K-Mart had just opened on the edge of Glenwood Springs, and Romer explained what that meant to a downtown shoe store.
That's competition and it's good. The local store
might meet the new competition by expanding its inventory,
to carry new lines. To do that, the owner will borrow money
from the bank.
K-Mart, on the other hand, is big enough to float its
own commercial paper in the financial markets, and can get
a much lower interest rate that way.
The state treasurer's office cannot make sure that
all main-street businesses stay in business. If they can't
compete effectively, they should go out of business. But
through our investment policies, we can make sure that
small locally owned businesses have access to the capital
they need at competitive rates. We can provide a level
playing field, so that the merchant is competing on the
basis of his knowledge of his products and his market,
rather than on the basis of interest rates.
I sure hope he runs for governor someday,
Martha
said as we drove home. He actually knows what he's
talking about. And he cares about little towns in the
middle of nowhere.
I fully agreed, and in 1986 we were
actually enthusiastic about the prospects for Colorado when
Romer was elected.
Now it's 1990, and Romer's landslide re-election is as certain as anything can be in politics. Perhaps some of his efforts -- a new Denver airport and convention center -- will bear fruit someday, but out here, the orchard is about as barren as ever.
He travels to develop international trade and to make Colorado attractive to foreign investors. Do you know anybody making money in international trade? I don't either. And if people want to invest in Colorado, fine, but we have an active real estate industry; why does the governor have to be the chief salesman?
Improved telecommunications offer a great hope to rural areas, but every such initiative has come from the phone company, not the governor's office. Perhaps that's as it should be, but does the governor have any ideas?
Romer fights against legalized gambling and forthrightly opposes tax-limitation measures. But who's minding the store when we see a PUC that doesn't enforce safety regulations, a state that fails to collect unemployment taxes, county welfare directors embezzling for years, lottery directors leaving under curious circumstances?
To put it mildly, Romer has been a disappointment. But the bigger disappointment is that he rides so high in the polls. Is it something in the water? Or has the War on Drugs been such a dismal failure that most Colorado voters are too strung out to notice?
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