President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%↑
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd
(D) Adam Frisch
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
52%↑
48%↓
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 04, 2013 06:09 AM UTC
32 Comments
An Obama voter's cry of despair
" . . . simple [ACA] website . . . " — yeah, right?!?
Didn't we used to have a resident computer-genius poster here awhile back, who insisted it was absolutely impossible to write a program to calculate simple sales tax rates? Seems like a "pretty simple" program to me — I wonder whatever happened to that guy????
I think that brilliant incredibly good looking genius said this was absolutely doable and that someone should create a company to do so. But that it doesn't exist yet.
No, he just said he couldn't figure out whether offering a package with sales and service combined constituted a taxable sale.
Yep. Or to be more specific, I could never get the DoR to answer that question. They told me to make my own decision (and then they could sue if they disagreed).
Remember when Michael Brown was so clearly incompetent and everyone called for him to be fired? And what did President Bush do? Fired him.
We have the same level of incompetence with the ACA website and do you hear any calls for the people responsible to be fired from the left? Any?
You've completely lost any perspective you may have once been able to claim, dude . . .
(You've been calling for firings — aren't you "left" anymore, David?)
First, you conflate the deaths and unnecessary human-life turmoil unnecessarily caused by an incompetent and unprepared response with the largely political and self-inflicted damage to this Administration by a not-yet-ready-for-prime-time website?!?
Second, hell yeah — fire Sebelius — today!! That'll fix all those programming issues, right?!? And, it'll be a snap to immediately confirm one out of those thousands of highly-qualified folks lining up to take her place??? (Then you can lecture us some more about strategic planning as demonstrated in past presidencies . . .)
You're becoming a GOPer wet dream, David!
David was never left. He's basically an old fashioned moderate Republican with progressive views on social issues. This is not to say anything in reference to his comments today. Just to clarify that any understanding of David as lefty is a off base.
Oh, that explains a lot. Here, I thought David was a disappointed Democrat, and highly committed to the "let's not just blast the GOP" doctrine, partially out of (completely understandable) familial loyalty. That's why his ludicrous comparisons of FEMA's handling of Katrina to the failures of the ACA websites seemed so strange. Now, they make perfect sense. So, yeah… the sites are severely messed up. But, that definitely opens up the question, What's his side done?
I think it's more, instead of discussing what a massive fuck up Sebelius is, let's just claim anyone complaining is a closet Republican. The problem is, when you protect people that are so clearly incompentent, you lose the ability to claim Democrats can be trusted to competently administer the government.
Kathleen Sebilius is far from incompetent or a fuck-up. She may not be able to write code, but she was one hell of an insurance commissioner in Kansas and a very effective Governor. I'm not defending every detail of this situation nor it's execution. It's the political structure that gives us this. I read yesterday that 90% of all government IT contracts in excess of $10 million fail. And the feds spend $80 billion annually in this department. As in every other debate – let's go to the root of the problem. This appears to be a structural problem whereby the Feds are incapable of any IT project of size.
If you are managing the signature accomplishment of the Administration, and you're competent at the job you're presently in, you make damn sure that the website effort falls in the 10% category and is successful. You bring on the experienced people from Silicon Valley at the start, not after it's crashed & burned.
You are correct that 70% – 90% of government IT contracts fail. But that doesn't excuse this failure, that's an indictment of incompetent management across the federal government. We Democrats like to claim that we competently administer the government. Well, no – we don't. The Republicans are worse but we suck pretty bad too.
Kathleen Sebilius may have been great in Kansas, but she's clearly risen to the level of her incompetence. And in some respects it's a pity. No one will remember her efforts in Kansas or previous work on the ACA. She'll go down in history as the manager of one of the biggest IT disasters ever.
Let's just agree to disagree on Secretary Sebilius. I'll withhold my judgement until the next 5 months play out. This isn't a snark, David – we need minds like yours solving the problem. But in all due respect, you've been unable to bring about change in our state tax system that I have no doubt you could make better. There is one party committed to fixing the problem (which wouldn't even have been necessary had 31 Governorrs had refused to set up their state exchange. And there one party committed to perpetuating the health poverty we have in this country. I know which side I'll choose – as messy as it is right now.
Pardon the typos. Texting and walking at the same time. Will probably end up with me under a bus in DC intersection.
No one's protecting Sebelius. I'll say again, the ACA websites have been a massive screw up. Unless you're talking about the entirety of the ACA….are you? Are you trying to use this one failed aspect (with many, many issues) to invalidate the whole thing? Well, since extortion didn't work….
As to claiming Democrats could/should completely administer the government? No, I'm against one- party rule, by either side. I'd be happy if there were more parties. But, I'd ask again…What has your side done to improve anything since Obama was elected?
I'm in the category of my complaints are the ACA didn't go far enough. I would prefer single payer. But I do think, aside from the website, it's done pretty well and has definitely improved things.
As to what has my side done to improve Obamacare? I don't think the Dems in Congress have proposed anything to improve it.
David, I am with you all the way on this. I think one problem with civil service administrating IT projects is, ironically, the same fact that "protects" civil service tenure. Seniority rules in moving people up the administrative ladder. The IT technology changes so quickly, that career professional can NOT keep up and are not therefore capable of admiminstrating such programs, IMHO.
This is one real upcoming problem that I see. If a person gets a notice that their insurance is being canceled as of January 1, and they cannot get on the government web to find and choose and make a payment by January 1, they will suffer a real gap in insurance coverage. For people with life threatening conditions, such as cancer, a gap in coverage results in a gap in treatment and that can be deadly. As a cancer survivor, as are many bloggers here including David, the concern about the government's mess goes beyond partisan politics.
David's commentary is welcomed and hope that boyles is not the only "outsider" reading Coloradopols.
When did it become "conservative" to say people who are incompetent should be replaced? And I would classify not being able to get insurance a lot more than a "largely political" issue. In fact for someone facing large medical expenses, you might call it "unnecessary human-life turmoil unnecessarily caused by an incompetent and unprepared" bureaucracy.
If this was Europe, Sebelius would have resigned by now. She was given the responsibility to implement the policy and she failed. The fact that large states like NY and CA were able to create functioning, scalable websites just confirms that.
If this was Europe, we would have had universal government sponsored single-payer health care for more than fifty years . . . plenty of time to have worked out any website programming issues . . .
My guess on the ballot results:
I am so sick and tired of the fracking ads. " Its safe " we took " tough measures " banning it would " hurt the community ", and its based on " sound science".
Any factual information at all to back that up ? No. Just a load of complete unsubstantiated nonsense. I hope most people can see through the veneer of bullshit.
My prediction on 66 – fails 55+/45-
You will have noticed that the YES campaign has not released the results of any polling. This is a very strong indicator of a disaster looming for them.
You give 66 too much credit. I'd guess 60/40. There's too much anti-tax sentiment in this state to begin with, and then you add the taking from everywhere to help Denver and Aurora. I'm not so sure about the pot taxes either, because they sound steep, and the pot people are personal liberty types who are also anti-tax.
I'm opposite on AA vs. 66.
I'll vote to pass 66, because we really need to fix our school funding formula, and it triggers implementation of parts of SB13-213. I don't know if the amendment will pass statewide, though – the No on 66 campaign has been very good at disinformation and obfuscation of the issues.
On the other hand, I'm not voting for AA. The voters gave the legislature a mandate on MJ taxes, and the legislature IMHO went overboard in crafting AA. The exise tax, which the previous amendment endorsed, is not going to be spent on MJ enforcement as it was intended – instead it's going to be spent on school construction, which should be part of 66. The legislature instead decided to double-tax MJ by adding a sales tax for enforcement, which the MJ amendment did not envision. Oh – and they are giving themselves the power to raise that tax even higher if they'd like. Just – no.
The reason that school construction was included in AA is because it fulfills the original promise of Amendment 64.
I thought 64 promised that exise taxes were to go toward enforcement.
Mostly to regulation and enforcement, $40 million to school construction. It was thought to be a helpful selling point.
A very strange story on The Spot. Rep. Gerou is well known for her temper but at least she is smart. Senator Marble is dumber than a fence post. Who knows what the truth is.
http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2013/10/31/cheri-gerou-vicki-marble/102260/#disqus_thread
Let's hear it for "more money for education".
A year later: A big chunk of DPS' $466M bond to be spent on admin building
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/finance_etc/2013/11/a-year-later-bulk-of-dps-466-million.html
The article says that 33M of the 466M bond money will buy a downtown facility which will house 2 schools (Emily Griffith Opportunity School, and an expeditionary elementary school,), in addition to the DPS admin offices.
The old Emily Griffith building was a quaint, but dank, warren of little rooms with outdated wiring and plumbing. It was not able to provide the kind of power and wi fi access needed for its mission. If it had asbestos, too, well, that's expensive to remediate.
The only thing I will regret about the new space is that it may be harder for the teacher's union to picket outside if there are two schools to accomodate. We liberal union thugs need our space, doncha know.
Seems like a relatively good use of bond money to me.
But horrendous governance. The building was part of a shell game during the election. Can you trust another DPS election if they are just going to do whatever they want once they win?
I can't.
I wish Tom would find a job closer to Boulder and his kids' schools.