Ritter's big ideas lauded, but GOP asks about funding Speech calls for steady progress in schools, health

Gov. Bill Ritter got the applause he sought during his second State of the State address Thursday when he unveiled an ambitious plan to align content standards for preschool through high school with standards for college admission.

His proposals for economic development, public safety and renewable energy also found a warm reception.

But while Democrats called his speech a visionary call to action on many fronts, Republicans criticized Ritter for leaving out talk of how he'd pay for his big-ticket goals during his 53-minute speech.

Ritter steered clear of making any far-reaching proposals in the areas of health care, transportation or higher education funding - the topics he has called the state's largest needs.

"These are all high-priority issues, as is continuing broad-based discussions on how best to address conflicting provisions in our state's Constitution," he said. "But we aren't going to come up with big fixes in all of those areas all at once. It would be a fool's errand to even try."

Ritter proposed steady, across- the-board progress, especially in education and health care.

Education plan welcomed

"If ever there was a place to be bold and ambitious, to push hard and fast against the status quo, (education) is it," he said.

His bipartisan "Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids," which would basically take the education system apart and put it back together, was broadly received as a good, ambitious proposal.

Instead of passing a set number of courses to graduate, students would have to demonstrate competency in key areas, such as math or English.

He also reiterated his plans, announced this fall, to implement some of the recommendations from his P-20 Council. The suggestions include expanding full-day kindergarten, eliminating the 3,000-child waiting list for the Colorado Pre-School Program and creating a Colorado Counselor Corps to deploy 70 guidance counselors into targeted middle and high schools.

Issue of freeze ongoing

Republicans mostly held their applause there, showing their opposition to Ritter's plan to fund those programs with the property tax freeze the governor pushed through the legislature last year.

Republicans have sued, calling it a tax hike without the public vote required by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. The latest figures show the freeze will allow the state to keep an estimated $3.8 billion over the next 10 years that it otherwise would have had to return to taxpayers under a 1994 school finance law.

Ritter said his goal remains that all Coloradans have access to basic health care, but he stopped short of repeating the 2010 deadline he gave during his first State of the State a year ago.

"People are frustrated that Washington has failed to craft a national solution," he said. "Maybe a new president changes that. But in Colorado, we won't wait for reforms to come from Washington. Instead, we will make smart changes to the system and do what we can afford as we work toward our long-term goals."

The Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform plans to report to lawmakers on Jan. 31 that it would cost $1.1 billion to cover almost all of Colorado's 785,000 uninsured.

No one under the Capitol dome anticipates the state coming up with that kind of money this year. And Ritter shied from any grand proposals, focusing instead on enrolling 17,000 more children into the state children's health insurance program, getting children immunized, and directing a team to hold meetings with insurance companies, hospitals and physicians on how to drive down the costs of quality health care.

Ritter also stayed in line with Democratic lawmakers by folding the topics of transportation and higher education funding under the broader umbrella of economic development.

New phase in energy

He thanked his blue ribbon transportation panel, which has worked over the past year and determined the state needs to increase road and bridge funding by as much as $2 billion per year to accommodate population growth.

He also said that the Department of Higher Education was finally working closely with college presidents on a long-term funding strategy.

Ritter highlighted the state's progress over the last year on renewable energy, saying the state is headed in a new direction. He announced a new phase, "bringing home the new energy economy." Those plans include creating a Colorado Carbon Fund, residential solar and insulation incentives and tools to help businesses and citizens reduce their carbon footprints.

Democrats, environmentalists and health care advocates praised Ritter's speech.

"He hit it out of the park," said House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver. "The governor emphasized the bread-and-butter priorities that keep people up at night."

Republicans gave Ritter credit for his work on the environment, and they took credit for his proposal to raise the bar on education. But House Minority Leader Mike May criticized him for hinting at "a virtual buffet of taxing opportunities" without promising not to raise taxes and fees.

"In last year's speech there was no mention of a property tax hike and we got one," he said. "And last year he didn't mention unionizing the state employees and we got that done. So we'll see where he actually governs vs. the speech."

May acknowledged that it will be hard for the GOP to outright block Ritter and the Democrats' agenda. Democrats outnumber Republicans, 40-25 in the House and 20-15 in the Senate.

"We'll be noisy - that's our job" as the opposition party, May said, comparing the loyal opposition to an ankle-biting Chihuahua. "Sometimes it's our duty to say: 'Are we going down the right road?' "

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Reactions to the speech

* "I think you heard a lot of common ground, where Republicans and Democrats will work together, but I didn't hear a lot of new ground being covered. I didn't hear a lot of the details behind the ideas."

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma

* "It was incredibly inspiring for me to know that all the things I've worked on over the past seven years are coming to pass."

Rep. Alice Madden, D-Boulder

* "He's been in full retreat from any of the broad-based, sweeping solutions that he proposed last year. I feel we need to declare victory to a certain extent, that the governor has heard us out and he is taking a much more go- slow approach. I'm delighted to see him backing away from radical broad-based schemes that are risky to the people of Colorado."

Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs

* "We were delighted with his bright sunny forecast for Colorado's new energy economy and we're glad that he embraced the Go Solar initiative to make Colorado's abundant sun resources accessible and affordable to all Coloradans."

Elise Jones, executive director, Colorado Environmental Coalition

* "It is great that the governor is being so stubbornly persistent about addressing health care and keeping it front and center."

Dede de Percin, executive director, Colorado Consumer Health Initiative

"* He's put a stake in the ground and he has given us a very clear direction of where we're headed as a state and it's a model that has broad, bipartisan support."

State Treasurer Cary Kennedy

* "State of the State speeches are opportunities for chief executives to paint pastoral landscapes using broad brush strokes, and like every other governor in the nation, ours has done so with some extra dabs of green, that political hue of the day. Small business only asks that whatever Gov. Ritter's 'New Energy Economy' might portend, it results in more green in the landscape and not less from the all-too-thin wallets of mom-and-pop firms and their employees."

Tony Gagliardi, Colorado state director for the National Federation of Independent Business