08-12-25 *INTERVIEW* Barb Kirkmeyer The Republican Perspective on the Upcoming Special Session

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday we had on the show State Senator Jeff Bridges, who.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Is also.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
I think currently chairman of the Joint Budget Committee and
the Caloro State Legislature, and he gave the Democratic perspective.
I will call it on the upcoming special session of
the state Legislature where where the legislature is going to
have to figure out how to come up with something
on the order of three quarters of a billion dollars

(00:29):
to fill in a budget hole that Democrats complain is
caused by Donald Trump and the big Beautiful Bill. And
I thought it would be very important to get a
Republican perspective, so joining us to give her perspective.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I don't know if she would call it.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
The Republican perspective, but maybe Barb Kirkmeyer, senior Republican also
I think former chair. You can correct me if I'm wrong,
of the same Joint Budget Committee. Barb is a state
Senator from Well County, Colorado. Hi, Barb, welcome back to
the show. It's good to have you.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hi, it's great to be back on. And now I'm
in the minority party. Fine, never get to be chair
of the Joint Budget Committee, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
I thought that was one of those weird committees where
they kind of shifted things around and keep it three
to three and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
So, okay, I'm glad I stand corrected.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
So, uh, what I want to start with the same
question I started with with Jeff yesterday and the sort
of a macro thing. Can you please explain and define
the problem that is to be solved in the special session? Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
And I know I listened to what Senator Bridges had
to say and he really went into all the numbers.
But let me just talk kind of in generalities. First
of all, Democrats want to frame this as a crisis
that's forced upon them by federal actions. That federal action
being that the those you know, those crazy Republicans. And
I'm thinking that's how Democrats think. Those crazy Republicans back

(01:52):
in Washington, DC decided to give us all tax relief
and give us tax breaks, and somehow that's a huge
problem for the Democrats here in Colorado. And it does,
it does create a problem with regard to our revenues
because our revenues on income tax is tied to the
federal income tax as well. It's called a rolling conformity,

(02:13):
and so it does it leads to a loss of revenue,
So less taxes paid in by people leads to a
lots of revenue to the state. But the crisis, the
crisis that we're in, it's not because of federal action.
It's basically because of structural defects in the state's budget
we have created, you know, defense of being created by

(02:34):
years of reckless spending and one time gimmicks. That's what's
going on here. And let me just kind of give
you a rundown over the last seven years, what's happened here,
what the Democrat playbook has been, so to speak. In
twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, Governor Polish shut down the economy.
We kept over spending, We got in gush gush for us.
We received a whole bunch of COVID dollars, you know,

(02:56):
federal funds that came in and I'm talking like in
in the billions, and they just kept overspending, and they
kept spending them on what was supposedly supposed to be
one time kind of things, but they ended up being
not one time kind of things. And so you know,
but in twenty twenty twenty twenty one, Democrats playbook was
We're going to blame COVID for everything, and they did.
And then for the next six years after that, they

(03:17):
decided it was a good idea to keep spending all
those federal funds, hire over seven thousand new state employees,
start new programs, continue to overspend the budget last year
one point two billion overspent. Where we started in a hole.
When we're trying to define our budget for the twenty
five twenty six year and we'll and behold, you know who,

(03:37):
they blame Taber. It was Taper's fault. Doesn't have anything
to do with they're overspending. It's Taper's fault. And now
here we are in twenty twenty five. Don't want to
overtime pay. They want to increase taxes. They keep telling
you that they're saving you money. Haven't seen it yet.
And now we're going to have a special session to
raise taxes. And they blame Trump. And the special session

(03:59):
is about raising taxes. There is nothing in this call,
you know. The call is what the governor has to
put in place, basically tells us here, legislators, these are
the only topics you get to carry a bill on
that you get to try and have influence and make
a difference and solve this seven hundred and fifty to
eight hundred million dollar problem that we have because of

(04:20):
shortage of revenues, because we're getting a tax break. And
he already puts in the call everything's about raising taxes.
There's absolutely nothing in this call that lets me put
a bill in that says here's where we're going.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
To cut spending. So you heard me talking with Jeff
yesterday and I said, I'm disappointed, but not surprised at
how little it seems like Democrats actually want to cut
and how much they want to raise taxes. And you know,
Governor Polis And keeps waving around this shiny object of

(04:53):
our somewhat lower state income tax rate than it was
a few years ago. And I am grateful for a
somewhat lower state income tax rate. But in the meantime,
Democrats have been bleeding us dry with fees on everything,
and now they just want more more money. So let
me bring this to a question.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
So as we as.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
We drift closer to the special session a little a
little over a week away, now, I guess you're probably
learning a little with a little bit more specificity about
what the Democrats actually want to do in this special session.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
So what do you think you know now.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
About this upcoming special session in terms of any specifics
on Democrats plans and what I might broadly call their priorities.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, I'm laughing because the amazing I know is what's
in the call. Basically, the Democrats have been keeping the
Republicans in the dark. They've been doing things behind closed doors.
The leadership has in fact, I basically you know, and
this maybe wasn't the nicest thing to do, but I
did it anyways, had to threaten Senator Bridges to have
a Joint Budget Committee meeting or I would call one myself.

(06:02):
A couple of weeks ago, leadership Democrat leadership called a
meeting of the leadership JBC. Wasn't invited, We weren't even
allowed to sit at the table, and we weren't allowed
to ask questions. Yet they had what looked like should
have been a JBC meeting. They had our non partisan
staff create a new forecast, an update at forecast, which

(06:22):
normally goes through the Joint Budget Committee, not through Democrat
legislative leadership, and the two minority leaders were there as well,
so two Republicans. But they didn't call the meeting. They
didn't even know it was on the agenda until pretty much,
you know, a couple of days beforehand. But anyways, they
called this meeting and don't have the GBC there. And

(06:42):
then so I'm asking Saray Bridges, when are we going
to have a meeting? We're are the Joint Budget Committee,
we should be having this discussion. And you know, he
didn't respond to me for quite some time, and he
like went on the Mandon Connell Show and said, Hey,
if you don't call special, if you don't call a
meeting of the Joint Budget Committee by noon tomorrow, I'm
going to call myself because i don't need you to
call on and I'll just ask everyone to come and

(07:03):
I'll bet they show up. Yeah, so lo and behold,
we end up having one. So it's been you know,
it's going to be a surprise to all of us.
I'm sure we don't get to see the bills that
they're introducing. I mean, we have an idea that over
at least forty bills have been put in for title
and possibility of having forty bills, we don't know what's
on all forty of those bills, and in those forty

(07:24):
bill titles I mean, we're not asked to be on
bills with the Democrats, and quite frankly, we don't ask
the Democrats to be on our bills either because they're
not going to be quite frankly, so they're not really
sharing a whole lot of information with us. The information
I get is what I gleaned from being at the
Joint Budget Committee and paying attention and looking back at

(07:45):
the comments that they make at forecasts or during the
you know, the session, or at any times I just
happen to see them or I'm talking to them about things.
That's only where I get stuff. They're not telling us.
They don't ask the Republicans what we think should happen
to do it. You know, it's kind of with a smirk,
like what do you want to cut? Right?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Right?

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Well?

Speaker 1 (08:04):
You heard, you heard what Jeff said yesterday? Right I said?
I said, if I were in the state legis like,
if I were in charge, I said, I'd probably go
along with using a little bit of money from the
rating Rainy Day Fund, especially for this first year because
the budget crunch before we get to all the Medicaid
stuff will actually be less.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Next year than it next fiscal year than right now.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
So I said, all right, just hypothetically in my mind,
if we need to cut four and a half percent,
I'll give you all right, one and a half percent
of it out of the Rainy Day Fund and then
the rest out of spending spending cuts and no tax increases,
if I were in charge, right And and he said, well,
Republicans always say that, but they never tell us what
they want to cut.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
So I want to give you a chance to address that.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
If you were in charge, and if you were on
the you know, the the Ross Kaminsky way of thinking
about this, or more importantly, since you know what you're
talking about, and I don't, the Barb Kirkmeyer way of
thinking about this, what would you cut?

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Sure? And so for well, I just want to address
the comment where he said Republicans don't tell them what
they want to cut. I would disagree with that. I
tell them all first, thereys that I thought we should
cut last year when we were going through the budget
writing process and during the amendment process, when the other
ninety four legislators because there are six of us on
the Joint Budget Committee, the other ninety four legislators say
this is where we want to cut. There were plenty

(09:19):
of Republican amendments that said these are things that we
think you should cut in the budget, and gosh, they
all didn't pass. But here's the thing in this special session,
and what we are dealing with here is the revenue shortfall.
So we're not dealing specifically with the twenty six twenty
seven budget. We're not necessarily dealing with even now. We

(09:40):
can't do any spending cuts because it's not in a call.
So what needs to happen in this one here? And
I'm just going to disagree with you a little bit.
I wouldn't take anything out of the reserve. The reserve
is for when we hit a recession, not for when
we have a crisis of priorities like the Democrats have
and they keep spending money on things that we don't
absolutely need, are things that you know, they're pet projects,

(10:02):
those types of things, and instead putting the money on
core functions of government. How about we fund core functions
of government first. But they don't do that, and we
didn't do that in the budgets. Fair enough twenty five sessions.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Okay, fair enough, So let's let's leave aside that reserves.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, because they need to essentially learn how to spend
on the right priorities, spend on those things that we
absolutely need to have. But what I would do is,
and you know, I pointed this out to him in
the statute, there's the ability for the governor to do
an executive order. And I wanted to know why he
didn't have a plan, why he hadn't done an executive
order yet, similar to what Governor Owens did back in

(10:39):
two thousand and one and two thousand and two, or
Governor Hickenlooper did back in two thousand and eight to
twenty ten, when we actually had these areas of where
you know, we had nine to eleven back in two
thousand and one and all those fires going on in
our state, and Governor Owns came to his state departments
because I know I worked for him, and he said
his first thing was, you will cut four percent. And

(11:00):
then he came back and said, and now you're going
to cut ten percent of your general fund operating budget
because that's the kind of situation we're in. So we
need to cut. And the governor needs to do his job.
He is the administrator, he is the executive of this state.
I'm in the legislative branch. We write the budget. He's
supposed to fulfill it, and he's supposed to get these

(11:21):
projects done and do these things that are within the budget.
He has the ability to stop spending and he hasn't
done that. He's had the ability, and I brought this
up last year during the budget talks, that he's had
the ability to do a hiring freeze, to put a
travel ban on to you know, so you can't go
traveling places, to do all sorts of things that Governor
Owens did and even Governor Hickenlooper did, and he has

(11:42):
not done those. So I'd like to know what his
plan is. But my first thing is he should cut
cut across the board. And they keep saying, oh, we
can't do that. I'm telling you, I live through it,
and you can do it. And the governor has every
ability to tell his state departments to go in and
make cuts, and they have you know, you know Russ.
First of all, we do not as a law legislative branch,
we do not fund employees full time employees. Specifically, we

(12:06):
give them a line item that says here's how much money,
and it could be a million, it could be ten million.
It could be one hundred million dollars in that line item,
and then they decide how many people they hire and
how much they pay them. We don't get any say
in that, so the governor could tell that and for
him to come out and say, oh, but I've put
a hiring freezon for four months. Are you kidding me?
That's a drop in the bucket. He needs to get

(12:27):
with it and do his job. Here's the other thing.
We have about two point three billion dollars of tax
credits now. The minute the minute that the director of
OspB the opposite state playing budget, the governor's budget director,
the minute he realized we couldn't pay our bills, why
didn't we start talking about pausing those tax credits?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
So can you what do we mean there?

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Are you talking about tax credits to citizens of Colorado
that the government pays out.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yes, So, for example, there are tax credits that are
and I don't have the list here in front of me,
but we give tax credits for the for electric bicycles,
for heat pumps, and electric lawnmowers. There's one tex. Those
are three different tax credits. We do other tax credits,
like we have the earned income tax credit and the
Affordability Housing tax Credit. Now those are two that I

(13:21):
probably would leave in place because they're doing good things.
And then for people who truly need them, we have
another tax credit. It's called the Family Affordability Tax Credit.
I'm okay with the tax credit on that because again
it's for people, you know, lower income people who and
I guess it goes all way up to ninety thousand
or something like that in income, and you know, it's

(13:42):
it's tiered how much tax credit you would get. But
then there's this other provision in the law that says
any amount by which the credit exceeds a taxpayer's liability
is refund it to the taxpayer. So this is not
just a tax credit, it's a refund. So if you
or due, if you should have been able to get
a fifteen thousand dollars tax credit and that your tax liability, man,

(14:07):
you're not paying any income taxes, you actually can get
a check from the state for up to fifteen thousand bucks.
Why aren't we putting a pause on that refund? Can
THEE we're dropping below the cap here, and that's what
needs to be happening.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Can the executive branch BARB Can the executive branch pause
that stuff, or does the legislature have to do it?

Speaker 3 (14:27):
I think both, and it could possibly be challenged, But
I think the governor has the ability in statute because
it says in statute that when sufficient revenues aren't available
that for a certain period, that the Governor, by executive order,
by his discretion, may suspend or discontinue and hooler part

(14:49):
the functions or services of any department.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Okay, let me let me jump in for a second.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
We have with just a couple of minutes left, and
for those just joining, we're talking with Barb Kirkmeyer, Republican
state senator from County and member of the Joint Budget Committee.
So I want to stick on this question of what
would you cut and so you said across the board,
and I want to just hone in on that a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Do you think it can be and do you think
it could be?

Speaker 1 (15:15):
I'm sorry, it should be that each of whatever the
major departments are of the state government, each one is told,
let's say we need to cut four and a half percent,
each one is told you will cut four and a
half percent, or do you think you tell based on
what the legislature figures out and priorities and so on.
You tell this department to cut six percent, this department

(15:37):
to cut three and a half percent, and so everybody's
cutting some but not necessarily every department's cutting the same amount.
How would you how do you think about that?

Speaker 3 (15:45):
I would probably look at that. If I were governor,
I would probably say, look, we need to have this
amount of savings. We need to stop this much spending.
And I would charge every department to go first look
and because I did this as a count commissioner, go
look for first ten percent cut. And even if I
just again want to throw this out there, even if
we said, okay, we're not going to cut education, we

(16:07):
could still cut the Department of Education. So maybe they
can come up with two or three percent cuts. I'm
not sure in the Department of Education, but I would
think they could at least. But you could tell each
department individually what's cut. But even if you took out
you know the total program amount for students, you know
that we fund for K twelve education, and you took
out the Department of health Care Policy and Finance, which

(16:27):
is Medicaid providers, which is access to healthcare. If you
took those two out, we still have about five point
five billion dollars of General Fund ongoing expenditures. And if
you told all of the rest of the department go
look for ten percent cut, that's five hundred and fifty
million dollars. I think that gets us pretty far on
the way.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Okay, if we look.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
At some of these tax credits and turn them off,
I think that's how we get there the rest away,
instead of going back and increasing people's taxes.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, I'm really sickened to buy.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
I expect that the Democrats are going to raise taxes
more than they cut spending. Jeff Bridges said on the
show yesterday a third to third a third. I don't
think it's going to be a third a third a
third between between the Rainy Day Fund tax increases and
spending cuts. I think spending cuts may end up being
the smallest of all three of those numbers.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
And I think it's I think it's just terrible. Now.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
One thing I was a little bit surprised to hear
Jeff admit.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I mean, I think it's honest, but I was a
little surprised to hear it come out of his mouth.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Is he expects that out of sheer necessity in the
Willy Sutton kind of way. I rob banks because that's
where the money is. He said, he thinks out a
sheer necessity, there probably will be some cuts to Medicaid.
What do you think about that.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
I think maybe he's confusing medicaid with Medicaid like programs.
That's what I think.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
How about the one?

Speaker 1 (17:47):
How about the stuff for illegal aliens, which a lot
of my listeners are asking about.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
That's what I'm talking about. Those are Medicaid like programs
in the program that. Okay, so here's here again. You know,
Jeff wants to say over the Republicans don't give us anything. Well,
last year during the Joint Budget Session before, there's a
program called covering All Colorado, and it's for the undocumented
immigrants of people that are here, immigrants that are here illegally.

(18:11):
And it didn't even start till January of this year,
January twenty twenty five. I asked, first of all, if
we couldn't just posit, we could just wait. I mean,
last year we were looking at one point two billion,
which by the way, they didn't cut one point two
billion dollars out of out of the budget. But we
can talk about that on another day. But I asked them,
if we couldn't just posit to begin with, let's not

(18:33):
even start the program, let's just pose it in the
fiscal note. I think it was supposed to cost somewhere
between two million dollars in the first year and fourteen
million the next year. This is a program that's now
costing it's probably fifty one up to fifty or more
than fifty million dollars a year in the state of Colorado.
Then I asked, could we just posit or put a
cap on it to the amount that was in the

(18:53):
fiscal note. I was told no by all the Democrats
on that committee, on the Joint Budget Committee. So that's
what prizing. But when you hear these Democrats talk about
cutting access to healthcare to Colorados, they are talking not
about Medicaid. They are talking about Medicaid like programs such
as covering all Colorados. There are some other programs.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Experior dollars for illegal aliens. Look, I'm I can hear
the frustration in your voice, and.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
It's in mind. It's in mind too, and it should
be in everybody's.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
And I just will say, just as a macro thing
to listeners. This is what happens when you give one party,
in particular the Democratic Party, full control over a state government.
You end up with spending that's out of control and
people who are unwilling and unable to cut any spending,
even though they should have known better to begin with.
And instead, all they're going to do is raise your taxes.

(19:45):
Almost all they're going to do. And we're pretty host
and I'll give you the last seventeen seconds, Barb.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
I just want to correct one thing. Senator Bridges and
other Democrat leaders have said that they're just going to
cut corporate, corporate business taxes. That is not accurate. That
is not accurate. They're going after small businesses, both mom
and pop shops, small floral shops like what I used
to own. All these small businesses they're included in there.
Their business appreciation and interest cut that they want to

(20:13):
do could equal up to seven hundred and seventy million
dollars in twenty five twenty six. So that's not true.
I just want everybody to understand that's not true. This
special session is not a budget special session. This special
session is about taxing colorado on's and small businesses more
to cover up for their excessive growth.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Overspending State Senator Barb Kirkmeyer, thanks for joining us. Thanks
for that sobering and perhaps frustrating preview of what's about
to get done to Colorado taxpayers next week and when
the special session starts. Thanks for your time, Barb. Thank
you all right, that's.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
All I got for you today.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Mandy Condall up next to A'll be joining you tomorrow
and the next day from Bronco's training camp.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
I have a great rest of your Tuesday.