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February 22, 2016 08:59 AM UTC

How Did AFP Move Republicans on Hospital Provider Fee Despite Widespread Support from Business Groups?

  • 10 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

afpcoMuch has been written about the Democrats’ proposal to remove a hospital fee from TABOR restrictions, freeing up about $370 million for highways, schools, and other government projects that lack funding.

But one question that hasn’t been explained fully is, why the near unanimous opposition by Republican state lawmakers to the proposal? Unanimity that may be cracking, but still.

The question flashed out from a Colorado Independent article Friday, in which a spokesman for conservative Americans for Prosperity, backed by the Koch brothers, emphasized that last year 307 lobbyists were on one side of the debate over the hospital provider fee, and only a single lonely group was on the other. That would be AFP.

How did AFP pull this off, particularly when the business community, normally home base for the GOP, is aligned against Republicans on this issue? You wouldn’t expect all Republican legislators to jump in the laps of business groups, given the issues at play and AFP, but this level of separation from establishment business interests?

The business support has been chronicled best by Ed Sealover at the Denver Business Journal’s Ed Sealover, who wrote one article listing business organizations that signed a letter in support of the Democrats’ plan for the hospital provider fee. The organizations:

Action 22
Associated General Contractors
Aurora Chamber of Commerce
Club 20
Colorado Association of Commerce & Industry
Association of Colorado Realtors
Colorado Competitive Council
Colorado Contractors Association
Colorado Springs Forward
Colorado Springs Regional Business Alliance
Colorado Wheat Growers Association
Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce
Progressive 15
South Metro Chamber of Commerce

That’s a bunch of power there–with deeeeeep ties to Republicans. You’d think they’d have been able to convince more GOP legislators. How did AFP manage to pull this off?

Comments

10 thoughts on “How Did AFP Move Republicans on Hospital Provider Fee Despite Widespread Support from Business Groups?

  1. Contrary to what we all have assumed for decades, the Republican Party's top priority is no longer the well being of the business community. Its top priority is to destroy public institutions whether it be federal agencies or state colleges and universities. The AFP and the Republican Party have melded into an organization that assumes public institutions and program have no value and therefore must be destroyed.

    For example, 70% of the jobs in our society require some kind of post secondary certificate or degree but according to AFP and Republican Party the way to educate our children is by cutting taxes and strangling the same public institutions which are required to deliver that education. With a wind and nod, AFP and Republican Party promises that if we cut taxes, even more tax revenues will flow into federal and state coffers and we'll have more money to spend on public services like education than ever before. In other words you get something for nothing. There has been one very nasty fact that AFP and Republican Party simply won't acknowledge. On every single occasion supply side economics has been tried (32 times at he federal level and at least three times at the state level), it has totally failed to generate additional revenue.

    These are the same people who, without any evidence, continually claim our national defense has been ruined by President Obama yet they simultaneously wsant to destroy our education system simply because it is a public institution. They need to connect the dots. Our military forces now stationed in the field are simply the tip of the spear. Without an educated public, we won't have the kind of people we now need in the military. Without an educated public, we can never attract the kind of jobs and economic growth we need. And without economic growth, we won't have the tax base to fund our defense budget which means in the long run we won't be able to defend our country but of course, if your the AFP and the Republican Party, the answer is to cut taxes because even without schools and universities, a trained workforce, or the ability to defend ourselves from foreign enemies destroying the very foundations of our society and ultimately our ability to defend ourselves is more important than nurturing those institutions. Because they cannot connect the dots, the AFP and Republican Party are jeopardizing the future of our country. They have completely missed what Edmund Burke, probably the greatest conservative of all time wrote:

    A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

    The AFP and the Republican Party's blind rage over the fact public institutions even exist has led them into a dead end alley and threatened our future.

        1. My usual problem, BC, is navigating a tiny Amazon Fire keyboard with arthritic hands, with type so small it is hard to see typos.  This is on my Mac Pro 13" inch laptop, which is far easier to use than the kludgy Fire.   But DaftPunk is wrong to cricize the phrase "WIND and a nod" in a piece written about supply side economics.

          If ever a theory was something a politician just blew out of his ass, that theory is supply side economics!!

          Breaking wind and a nod is right!smiley

          1. And may I say A+ on the typing in this entry. Now go back to Amazon Fire, please, so I have someone who makes me look not so bad!

            Sorry abut the arthritic hands. I've inherited my grandfather's great life time guaranteed joints through my mom who has no problems with hands, knees, hips or any other moving body parts so far at 90 so I have no excuse.

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