GOP unveils agenda promising jobs

Here is a summary of Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis’ Platform for Prosperity. To see a complete version, visit this website.

Jobs

• Transform Colorado’s business climate so the state again is a leader in attracting new jobs.
• Keep Colorado a low-tax state.
• Oppose unreasonable regulations, fees and business mandates.

Colorado’s budget

• Oppose the systematic campaign of Democrats to increase taxes, significant fees, levies and surcharges without a vote of the people.
• Restore the cap on state spending and, until it is restored, oppose – and veto – spending above an annual 6 percent increase.
• Oppose those who would use Colorado’s current budget challenges as a pretext to weaken taxpayer protections in the Constitution or in state law.

Reforming government

• Undertake a comprehensive study to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, excess and abuse, freeing up dollars to spend on core areas benefiting the economy.
• Look to consolidate state boards, commissions and task forces to achieve savings.

Energy policy

• Support legislation and rule revisions to promote the responsible development of all sources of energy.

Health-care costs

• Allow health-insurance policies to follow a person from job to job.
• Reinstate the constitutional ban on taxpayer funding for organizations that provide abortions.
• Support giving patients the right to purchase health insurance across state lines.

Improving education

• Protect the rights of home-school families.
• Expand school choice in forming charter schools and magnet schools, and offer options to at-risk students in under-performing public schools.

Rule of law

• Support a mandatory workplace verification to ensure employees are in the United States legally.
• Oppose “sanctuary” policies, which violate state and federal law and block the award of state grants to any local government with such a policy.

Federal power

• Oppose federal government that is too big, too intrusive and too eager to seize power from the states.
• Oppose future stimulus bills or other federal spending bills that serve no valid economic purpose and add to the federal deficit.

Community safety

• End the Ritter administration’s early-release program for convicted criminals.
• Oppose any bill to curtail the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
• Restoring the security that comes with a quality job is at the core of the Platform for Prosperity.

By Joe Hanel
Herald Denver Bureau

DENVER – Colorado Republicans unveiled their small-government, anti-spending agenda Monday at RK Mechanical, a family-owned construction firm that got a contract from the federal stimulus bill.

The GOP’s 2010 agenda calls for a rejection of any more federal stimulus money, and gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis mocked the green highway signs for stimulus bill projects that include Gov. Bill Ritter’s name.

“Government doesn’t create jobs. It’s families like this that create jobs, through hard work, through innovation, through fiscal responsibility,” McInnis said.

Republicans chose RK Mechanical to unveil their agenda, a construction company with a payroll of about 900 employees. Company official Jon Kinning said his company in normal times gets about 15 percent of its business from government contracts, but in hard times like now, about 20 percent of its work comes from the government. However, the Democratic administration in Washington is making it tough for nonunion companies like his to get contracts, he said.

RK Mechanical got a $292,000 subcontract for construction of a U.S. Department of Commerce building in Boulder, according to the Recovery.gov Web site.

McInnis did not immediately answer a reporter’s question about the RK Mechanical contract Monday because he was unaware of it.

“We’ll take a look at it. I like to talk about things I know about,” McInnis said.

jhanel@durangoherald.com