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In the wake of Jerry Brown's singular victory in our first presidential primary, Colorado appears to have earned a bad reputation in some circles -- i.e., if we were a real state with real people, then a businesslike former Drexel Burnham Lambert attorney like Paul Tsongas would have triumphed here.
We must act now to restore Colorado's good name.
Boulder gave Brown his margin of victory and thus besmirched our red-meat ready-to-do-business image. Removing Boulder would be too difficult, but it shouldn't be too hard to remove Boulderites.
Suppose Public Service Co. could be persuaded that the real problem with the defunct Fort St. Vrain nuclear power plant is its location near Platteville. With state assistance, the plant could be dismantled, moved a mere 40 miles to the Pearl Street Mall, and then restarted.
Colorado could thereby demonstrate its commitment to risky and expensive power, and the ensuing diaspora of Boulderites to greener locales would insure that we will never again be embarrassed by a bloc of small-is-beautiful appropriate-technology tofu-eaters.
Repopulating Boulder will help in the distant future, but we also need to take actions with an immediate impact.
Fortunately, the Colorado General Assembly is in session, and run by Republicans who can enact a new tax plan to give more money to the wealthy.
According to Republican economic theory as articulated by Ronald Reagan, the more money the wealthy have, the more they invest in new products, new methods, new factories and new resources, thereby making the entire economy thrive.
(You know and I know that they do not invest in any such things. When the rich get richer, they actually buy expensive German cars with cellular telephones made in Japan, 8x-oversampling CD players made in Singapore, arcane financial instruments, U.S. senators and 30,000-square-foot beach-front cottages with gold-plated plumbing. But we can't let fact stand in the way of Conventional Wisdom.)
To make Colorado attractive again, our state government should re-instate the sales tax on food, quintuple the license fees for all vehicles more than 10 years old that cost less than $10,000 new, and compel banks to collect a $5-a-month tax on all accounts with balances under $10,000.
With this money raised from the poor, the state government could subsidize big corporations that are losing money and laying off people. These ailing companies would thereby be able to pay their executives at least $2.5 million a year. This will persuade the Fortune 500 that Colorado means business.
Also, the state could offer a tax abatement for every job exported to Mexico or Korea; that should bring in some big car-makers and electronics companies. Our clean-air laws still have a few teeth; pull them, so that Louisiana-Pacific can return with its formaldehyde fumes.
One bright spot is our educational system. It's already pretty good at teaching kids to stand quietly in line and never to talk back. Even so, there is always room for improvement in preparing the next generation for low-wage dead-end jobs.
No matter what it takes, I remain confident that our state government is prepared to bear any burden and pay any price so that Colorado can restore its tarnished reputation.
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