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The Europeans of yore had a good way to keep track of their heads of state: Ivan the Terrible, Frederick the Great, Philip the Good, Richard the Lion-Hearted.
We don't bother with that in Colorado, which is just as well. The locutions would be peculiar -- John the Promoter, Richard the Gloomy -- and we wouldn't know whether this is the reign of Roy the Generous or Romer the Tight-Fisted.
Roy the Generous offers a $360 million subsidy to United Airlines. Romer the Tight-Fisted says $100 million in state spending must be eliminated.
The state can't cut out anything important, like promotional trips or tax abatements for big corporations, so here are some other methods:
· Freeze highway construction. In the 13 years since I moved to Salida, millions have been spent to improve the route to Denver: Widening of U.S. 285 around Conifer, the brand-new Colo. 470, and, now, a better Mousetrap. But last weekend, the traffic was bumper to bumper, the same as ever.
As soon as a road is built or improved, its traffic load increases so that your trip is just as crowded and dangerous as before, and you don't get there any faster. Since highway construction provides no benefit, why bother?
· Close the University of Colorado. In theory, if
you get an A
in a class, it means excellent
work. It counts as 4.0 on the numeric scale. A C
is
average
and 2.0.
By CU's own definition, the overall grade-point-average there should be 2.0. What else does average mean? But instead it is 2.61, which means that the grades, and thus the entire system of evaluation at CU, are meaningless. So why keep it in business?
· Eliminate the state division of water quality. Down here, we've got a little war between the rafting industry and Trout Unlimited. Floaters want the late-season flow of the Arkansas River to be augmented to 700 cubic feet per second, so that there's enough water to carry a raft. Fishers say that augmented flows hamper the growth of brown trout, and that there are regulations which say the river should be managed for the benefit of the fish, above any other interest.
To manage the river that way, we've got to close every sewage-treatment plant along the river. Old-timers say that brown trout grew to cetacean dimensions in the days before sewage was treated, and when I asked, a Division of Wildlife biologist confirmed that: raw sewage makes for strong and healthy brown trout. It's much better for them than the limpid and chlorinated stuff that we put in there now.
If we want what's best for the fish, then we don't need sewage treatment plants, and thus we don't need a division of water quality to regulate sewage treatment plants. I hope the anglers can ignore the stuff that's floating by when they're catching those well-fed lunkers.
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