Dick Wadhams Drops Out

Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams decided to not seek reelection to his post. Chairman since 2007, the party made great gains in the 2010 election taking two (holding a third) executive branch offices and acquiring a 33-32 majority in the Colorado House.

However, the Colorado governor's race was unfortunate for Wadhams. He certainly bears no blame for the assembly and primary victory of Dan Maes, nor the political opportunism of Republican Tom Tancredo making a third party bid with the American Constitution Party.

Dick Wadhams warned of some discord brewing in the party:

I entered this race a few weeks ago looking forward to discussing what we accomplished in 2010 and to the opportunities we have in 2012 to elect a new Republican president; to increase our state House majority and win a state Senate majority; and to reelect our two new members of Congress.

However, I have tired of those who are obsessed with seeing conspiracies around every corner and who have terribly misguided notions of what the role of the state party is while saying “uniting conservatives” is all that is needed to win competitive races across the state.

I have no delusions this will recede after the state central committee meeting in March. Meanwhile, the ability of Colorado Republicans to win and retain the votes of hundreds of thousands of unaffiliated swing voters in 2012 will be severely undermined.

Mr. Wadhams was always a good friend to CRBC. He spoke to the group at its monthly luncheons quite regularly as chair.

Blogger Joshua Sharf has the statement in full.

-David Carpenter

PERA - Promised retirement benefits are unsustainable

"I think 20 state pension funds will run out of money in the next decade, and that certainly includes Colorado," said CU economics professor Barry Poulson, who tags PERA as being among the shakiest public pension funds in the nation.

"We're one of the worst. We're accumulating unfunded liabilities faster than almost every other state."

The increasing cost of providing benefits to retired employees doesn't just disappear; it gets passed on to member institutions, like local school districts. In this way, it's interesting to see the dots connected between PERA's funding problems and teacher layoffs.

PERA will remain fiscally unsustainable as long as government workers are promised a Defined Benefit rather than a Defined Contribution.

Government worker retirements plans are paid for on the backs of all those who work in the private sector, who now earn on average less than government workers and have a much smaller retirement plan - even with Social Security and their own savings.

It makes you wonder who is working for whom?

Thanks to FaceTheState for liberal use of excerpts.