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The cost of government and who pays for it is always a popular politic topic. A study just published by the Tax Foundation ranks states by their average combined local and state sales taxes. Any guesses on which state has the biggest combined sales tax? New York, maybe? How about California?

The Colorado State University Engines and Energy Conversion Lab (EECL) on North College Avenue is one of our community’s great success stories.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, Congress recently passed a piece of legislation to reform the nation’s patent system, and President Obama signed it into law.

In 2008 Larimer County had 190,162 jobs. The nation’s financial crisis and recession cost the county over 4,000 jobs over the next year. Ever so slowly, those jobs are being replaced. Today, the county has 187,740 jobs, still 2,422 fewer than the high in 2008. As the charts below show, we basically got bombed back to pre-2007 job levels.

Last week I participated on a panel that spoke to a group of 75 visitors from Park City, Utah. Later that evening I had dinner with some of our visitors.

Park City, like many other communities around the nation, has a long history of doing what are known as ‘intercity visits.’ Basically, leaders in their community make structured annual trips to other communities to learn from them. It’s an idea worth considering.

Yesterday I gave my perspective on the impact of President Obama’s jobs plan. In passing I mentioned some of the tax implications. Here’s a fuller treatment of the tax issue that may interest you.

President Obama delivered an energetic, articulate speech outlining his ‘jobs agenda’ last Thursday evening before a joint session of Congress and a national television audience.

As president of an association advocating for business, I’m asked, of course, what I think about such things. In this instance, will what the President is proposing work?

Unfortunately, the answer is ‘no,’ not if the objective is to restore business confidence and encourage private sector investment and hiring.

Labor Day Weekend has come and gone. Some people had to work, of course, but many people had Monday off, a traditional 3-day weekend for a last end-of-the-summer fling. (Technically, the last day of summer is September 22, but a manmade construct like the school calendar overrides the autumnal equinox!)

In theory, though most of us were hiking, at the pool or shopping, yesterday was about celebrating ‘labor,’ as in organized labor. Growing up in a railroad union family, I know how important the union movement was at one point in our nation’s history. Some of the benefits, work hours and safety regulations common today have their roots in hard fought battles of the past.

But the operative word there is “past.” Membership in private sector unions has plummeted over the years.

A friend quipped that we really should replace ‘labor’ with ‘employer.’

An opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal by Gary Becker titled “The Great Recession and Government Failure” argues that actions by the federal government since 2008 are to blame for the depth and length of the so-called Great Recession. A popular political theme has been that capitalism failed. He makes a compelling case otherwise. Becker is the 1992 Nobel economics laureate, is professor of economics at the University of Chicago and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.