At the end of last year Congresswoman Betsy Markey (CO 4) joined the Blue Dog Coalition, a self described group of 54 conservative and moderate Democrats that focus on fiscal issues including a balanced budget and the national debt.   A review of Markey’s voting record leaves one to wonder if her support for fiscal reform is all bark and no bite.

Markey is a freshman democrat lawmaker from a conservative district (voter registration favors republicans by nearly10 percent) that voted for John McCain in 2008.  She is the first democrat to represent the 4th CD since Wayne Aspinall in 1973.  The Cook Political Report calls the 4th CD a “toss up” for 2010, which is why Markey has tried so hard recently to appear as a fiscal conservative.

Early in 2009 she voted for or supported unpopular legislation such as the stimulus package, card check, and cap and trade.  My friend and fellow blogger Randy Ketner did an excellent job of highlighting Markey’s short legislative tenure.  His lengthy “Colorado Political Analysis 2010” appeared on Red State.

It seems that Markey is reading the tea leaves, which are telling her to move to the right or at least look like she is moving to the right.  Recently Markey has voted “against” her party on both health care and raising the debt limit, but in reality she voted with party leadership on all procedural and amendment votes only voting against leadership on the final vote.  That way she can position herself as independent of the democrat leadership without upsetting them.

Take health care for instance. Markey says she voted against H.R. 3962 Affordable Health Care for America Act because she claimed it did not do enough to “cut health care costs that crushing our businesses and families.”  She claims to support health care reform just not this specific piece of legislation. 

If that is true, then why did she vote no on a motion to recommit the bill?  According to GovTrack, Markey voted no on House Vote #866 which was “a final opportunity to revise” it before passage.  A motion to recommit sends legislation back to committee with instructions on how to fix the bill.  It can be used constructively or can be used to kill a “bill before it moves to a final up-or-down vote in the House.”  If Markey is serious about health care reform but not this bill, why vote to move it along instead of fixing it in such a way that she can support it?

Another example of Markey voting with democrat party leadership on rules and procedures for unpopular legislation then voting against them on the final tally is H.J. Res. 45 to increase the statutory limit on public debt.  This one is interesting because 38 Democrats voted not to raise the debt limit, 22 are freshman lawmakers facing competitive races in the fall, 17 are Blue Dogs.  Of the 17 Blue Dogs, only four enabled party leadership with procedural votes that allowed the debt limit resolution to go to the floor of the House.  Markey was one of those four. 

Markey voted yes on Roll Call Vote #45, which ordered the question: “Providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 45) increasing the statutory limit on the public debt.”  She then voted no on Roll Call Vote #46 on “agreeing” to an increase. 

Markey played the same game with H.R. 1106: Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, which allows bankruptcy courts to modify mortgage contracts.  She enabled democrat leadership when she voted no to recommit and yes to proceed.  On the final vote she said no. 

These aren’t the only examples.  I’ll highlight more as we get closer to the November vote.

The 4th CD is the heart of Ag country in Colorado.  Weld County is the 8th largest Ag producing county in the United States.  While Congresswoman Markey can claim to be a fiscal conservative, our sensitive olfactory receptors can detect a load of manure when we smell it.

Congresswoman Betsy Markey’s pivotal yes vote on the controversial cap and trade legislation may come back to haunt her as she seeks re-election  to represent Colorado’s 4th congressional district.

Within Markey’s district is Weld County, the country’s  eighth largest producing agricultural county in the United States.  Reuters just reported that  Bob Stallman, head of the American Farm Bureau Federation, made the following statement about cap and trade:

American farmers and ranchers ‘must aggressively respond to extremists’ and ‘misguided, activist-driven regulation … The days of their elitist power grabs are over.’

Despite pleas from the global warming alarmist crowd, Stallman warned Americans that cap and trade would destroy farmers, ranchers and those who rely upon them.

Vast amounts of farmland could become carbon-capturing woodlands under cap-and-trade, “eliminating about 130,000 farms and ranches,” said Stallman. One federal analysis says 8 percent of crop and pasture land could be turned into trees by 2050 because trees would be more profitable than crops.

Good luck defending your vote Congresswoman Markey.

I love being right (on many levels)!  Back on June 23, 2009, I discussed Governor Bill Ritter’s “war on Weld County” and posted the following:

Thanks to Governor Ritter and his environmental policies, Weld County is seeing high paying jobs go to other states and its tax base rapidly eroding.  Ritter won Weld County in 2006.  He won’t win it in 2010.

Turns out I was right.  Of course, I did not anticipate that Governor Bill Ritter would not seek re-election and therefore could not win Weld County. 

Let the speculating and handicapping begin.   Wise conservatives will realize Ritter’s exit is not necessary good news for the Republicans.   He would have lost.

As I have done for the previous four years, my Independence Day started  with a  broadcast of the Greeley Stampede Independence Day Parade.    I do this each year with  George Gray from AM Colorado on News Talk 1310 KFKA.  As usual, I have a couple of observations about the parade.

First, it’s boring.  There are very few “floats.”  Most are entries that include people riding in an classic car or a truck pulling a flat bed trailer full of people or people walking with a banner.  That’s it.  It’s tough to call a boring parade.  It’s even harder to make it sound exciting for listeners.

The parade participants can’t throw candy or give out literature.  It’s one dimensional with almost no interaction between parade participants and the audience.  Stop with the nannyism.  The Stampede needs to bring back the fun.  Bring back candy and water gun fights. 

The other observation involves our Congresswoman Betsy Markey.  First, her carbon footprint for July 4th was much larger than mine because I rode my bike while she rode in a very cool but not very eco-friendly corvette.  Also, when she went by there was awkward silence.  No booing. No cheering.  Nothing.  The street sweepers got more reaction.   I don’t know how she did along the rest of the parade route but when she passed my position in front of Cache Bank and Trust, she got  no response what so ever.   It seems that she has not connected with Weld County.

Markey has to win Weld County to win re-election in 2010.  She beat incumbent Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave in Weld County by a margin of 53-47 percent but a look at the vote totals tells an interesting story.  Weld County didn’t suddenly shift to the left. 

According to the Denver Post,  in Weld County Markey received 44,790 votes to Musgrave’s 39,056.  Obama and Udall both got more votes than Markey (46,644 and 44,948 respectively) but lost the county.  John McCain received 55,913 votes.  Do the math.  That means 16,857 McCain voters did not vote for Musgrave and 11,123 didn’t vote for Markey.  If the next GOP contender wins those nearly 17,000 votes back and makes a slightly better showing in Larimer County where Markey got almost 61 percent of the vote, then the GOP candidate can win.  The other counties in the 4th CD all favored Musgrave by large percentages, and I don’t see that changing.  I realize this sounds like a very big “if” but from someone who lives in the 4th CD, it’s really not.

Congressional Quarterly  reports that Markey votes with her party a mere 92 percent of the time and with the President 88 percent.  I guess that is supposed to indicate Markey’s “independent” streak.  Problem is she votes with her party and Obama  when it’s important to them despite the wishes of her constiuents.  Markey’s yes vote on cap and trade proves that.

Governor Bill Ritter and the environmental left have done it.  Colorado’s oil and gas industry is a thing of the past.

Oil and gas executives ranked Colorado dead last among states where they are likely to invest their companies’ money,  according to the Fraser Institute in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  

The Denver Business Journal reported that that the Fraser Institute survey rated Colorado near the top in oil and gas investment in 2007 but now it is dead last among the states, and 81st overall among all international jurisdictions.  Mozambique is a more attractive investment than Colorado.

Oil and gas executives cited Ritter’s new regulations governing oil and gas drilling operations as the reason for the dramatic drop in Colorado’s investment allure.

The survey quoted an unnamed executive saying that in Colorado, “operational, legal, and air quality rules and regulations are being instituted at a dizzying pace. It is hard to keep up with as an operator. Most of the regulators instituting and enforcing these new rules have little or no experience in the industry and do not understand operations. Often they cannot answer questions or help, even with their own rules.”

While Colorado is dead last among states, several in our region were in the top ten including Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and Oklahoma.  

Oil and gas was a huge industry in Colorado .  According to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, oil and gas drilling in Colorado is a $23 billion industry.   To put the economic devastation brought on by Ritter and the enviro-left, check out the following facts:

• More than 70,000 Coloradans have jobs because of the oil and gas industry, with an average salary 32 percent higher than the state average.

• The responsible development of oil and gas resources in Colorado contributes in excess of $135 million to state coffers, nearly 90 percent of state severance taxes.

• Seven of the nation’s 100 largest natural gas fields and two of its largest 100 oil fields are located in Colorado.

• Colorado’s Piceance Basin holds the second-largest proven natural gas reserve in the country.

• The nation’s proven natural gas reserves have increased every year for a decade, jumping another nine percent last year.

• More than one-fourth of the United States’ coalbed methane production occurs in the Centennial State.

• Colorado ranks sixth among the states in natural gas production and eleventh in crude oil production.

• Thirty-six of Colorado’s 64 counties actively produce oil or natural gas.

• Colorado has an estimated one trillion barrels of oil in shale — an amount nearly equal to Earth’s entire proven oil reserves.

• Three of every four homes in Colorado are heated with natural gas, compared to the national average of just over half of homes.

• Three-fifths of Colorado’s natural gas is exported to meet demand in other states.

• With an estimated 21,850 billion cubic feet of dry natural gas, Colorado has 9.2 percent of the nation’s supply, and 6.1 percent of liquid reserves.

What type of leader kills a $23 billion industry?  Answer:  one that is beholden to the environmental left. 

I’ll repeat my prediction: no way in hell he wins Weld County in 2010.

“Why does Ritter hate Weld County?” I haven’t see that sign yet but it is a reasonable question.  Among some elected officials the belief is that Governor Bill Ritter has declared war on Weld County.  We are starting to see the crippling effects of Ritter’s new oil and gas regulations.

Property taxes on oil and gas provide 40 percent of the revenue for Weld County’s annual budget.  Last week on my show, Weld County Assessor Chris Woodruff predicted that because of the new regulations, coupled with lower commodity prices, revenue from the oil and gas industry could be off by as much as one third in 2011 and 2012.  Oil and gas companies, along with their high paying jobs, say they are headed to states where the business climate is more friendly.

As bad as that sounds for Weld County, the Kersey school district will be in even worse shape. According to Chris, the district’s budget is 85 percent oil and gas property taxes.  Maybe the Platte Valley School District can install windmill to make up for the the looming budget gap.

Thanks to Governor Ritter and his environmental policies, Weld County is seeing high paying jobs go to other states and its tax base rapidly eroding.  Ritter won Weld County in 2006.  He won’t win it in 2010.

Governor Bill Ritter vetoed SB 180 which would have allowed collective bargaining for firefighters despite the will of local voters.  This is great news for Fort Collins and Weld County voters who, on multiple occasions, have defeated collective bargaining for first responders.

I have been critical of Governor Ritter but in this case he was right and it probably will cost him.  I give him credit for supporting local control. 

That’s more than I can say for several No CO legislators who voted against the will of their constiuents in order to appease union contributors.  No CO legislators voting yes: Reps Randy Fischer, John Kefalas, Jim Reisberg and Sen Bob Bacon.  According to Follow the Money, these four legislators received over $112,000 from labor unions during the last election cycle.

I guess what unions want is more important than what voters want.

A warning about this post: I use anonymous sources so take it through that filter.   However, everything posted was told to me independently by more than one source, or I was able to verify another way. 

Bill Jackson, Ag reporter for the Greeley Tribune, said it best when he wrapped up his article about Ag producers who face economic ruin following the collapse of New Frontier Bank.  Jackson wrote, “it could get real ugly.” 

Most businesses that had a loan with NFB have been told to find a new lender or face their loan being packaged and sold to an out of state bank for pennies on the dollar.  According to a phone conversation between one business owner and the FDIC,  loans are “going to be sold to an outside lender.  It’s not going to be anything here in town or maybe even in the state.   You’re never going to be able to actually talk to anybody to get anything done in person.  It will always be over the phone.”

And even one day late on a payment could constitute a violation of the terms of the loan, which allows the out-of-state bank to call in the loan.  The FDIC representative warned, “it’s in your best interest to get the loan refinanced before it’s sold.”

There are a several problems with this suggestion. First, there is no capital.  Second, the FDIC has made it harder for banks to loan by raising the required capitalization levels. Three, many of these loans are underwater as it is so they don’t qualify even if the capital is available.   And four, banks have no incentive to loan when they know that in a few short weeks they can buy the notes at auction for pennies on the dollar. I’ve heard from some former NFB customers that have been to dozens of lenders with no success.

Couple the financial mess with low commodity prices and hundreds of wells shut down two years ago, and we face a grave future. Agriculture is a $1.5 billion business in Weld County, making it 8th in the nation in agricultural product sales and the only county in the top ten outside of California.  This important industry is in trouble.  According to Jackson,

Many veteran agribusiness people are predicting the fallout from New Frontier’s closure will be worse than when the Greeley packing plant of Monfort was shut down for two years in the early 1980s, and the financial woes farmers faced in the mid-1980s with double-digit interest rates and commodity prices at the bottom of the barrel.

On my show last week, Carrie Linker, executive director of the Morgan County Executive Development Corporation, voiced another frightening possibility about what could happen if farmers, ranchers and dairies go bankrupt.  Banks foreclose and sell to anyone who will buy.  Buyers may include municipalities that only want the land for the water rights that go with it.  Front range cities could buy the water and allow the once fertile farm land to dry up in order to satisfy thirsty populations.

Ag isn’t the only troubled industry since the closure of NFB.  According to reliable sources, commercial real estate is about to see the bottom drop.  Source predictions include:

• double digit unemployment
• up to $1 billion of commercial real estate flooding an already saturated market as owners try to avoid foreclosure and banks try to get what they can for properties that are upside down.
• additional bank closures possible

A land developer told me that the impending implosion of the commercial real estate market will make the recent devaluation in the residential market look like a “day at Disneyland.”

It’s clear that the FDIC doesn’t know how to handle the situation.  They don’t have enough people on the ground in Greeley to make decisions.  I called the FDIC last week and have yet to receive a call back.  According to former NFB customers, that seems to be the pattern with federal agency.

To paraphrase Jackson, the picture isn’t pretty.  A longtime resident who is close to the situation described No CO’s economic future: “Think of the New Frontier closure as an earthquake that caused a tsunami that is currently out at sea.  The forecast is we are about to get slammed and all we can do is prepare.  Sadly some people are still walking on the beach oblivious to the danger.”

Jackson is right, it could get ugly, real ugly.

Congresswoman Markey’s office just sent me the following information regarding her efforts to help Weld County’s agricultural community:

• Congresswoman Markey spoke Wednesday with the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and was assured that the FDIC is committed to working with borrowers to secure new loans with other lenders. The Congresswoman is committed to making sure that they do.       
• There has been some confusion surrounding what happens to people’s bank accounts and loans tomorrow, Friday, May 8th         
• This Friday, if you are a depositor - meaning if you have a checking or savings account - on Friday your account will be transferred to Bank of the West - every penny of it.        
• You can transfer your money elsewhere, but if you take no action, your money will transfer to Bank of the West. However, Bank of the West is not going to commit to new LOANS.      
• The FDIC has confirmed that they will remain on the ground in Colorado to work with borrowers to assist them in securing new loans for the foreseeable future. (approx. 6 - 9 months)      
• Congresswoman Markey will continue to pressure USDA to shift agency funds from its guaranteed loan program to its direct operating loan program, which has exhausted all of its funds.      
• Transferring those funds would ensure both programs are available to qualified farmers who need the funds for spring plantings, farmhands and cow feed.       
• This situation is deadly serious, and could have far-reaching ramifications across the state.          
• Congresswoman Markey is committed to doing everything in her power to ensure that credit remains available for farmers, families and businesses in Northern Colorado.