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My house used to have Thai Tuesday.

We’d order takeout from our favorite local spot, happily trading time at the stove and a sink full of dishes for curries and noodles that arrived hot and delicious. At a little more than $10 a plate, it felt like a splurge — but a manageable one. An easy-to-rationalize indulgence on a random weeknight when everyone was tired and hungry and no one wanted to talk about quinoa.

But Thai Tuesday has gone the way of free bread at restaurants and anyone but me changing the rolls of toilet paper at my house. Not because we stopped loving Thai food, but because dinner now comes with a side of financial anxiety. As someone who loves to eat and try new restaurants, but who also loves paying her (thankfully-locked-in-at-2.5%) mortgage on time, I keep coming back to that age-old question, but for different reasons these days: What’s for dinner?

Ordering takeout used to feel like opting out of effort. Lately, it feels like opting into credit card debt. I do the quiet mental math while waiting in drive-thru lines: $13 meals times four people adds up to nearly $60 for my family’s beloved Good Times burgers and fries.

And that’s just for fast food. Somewhere along the way, the dinner middle ground disappeared. Picking up to-go food from the local Chinese spot or even Chipotle was once the compromise between cooking at home and sitting down at a restaurant. It cost a little more than a home-cooked meal, but not so much that it felt out of reach. But now it’s adding up.

I’ve had this conversation with pretty much everyone I know lately. A friend tells me her Chick-fil-A lunch ran $16. Someone else grabbed drinks and appetizers at The Cherry Cricket and left $60 lighter. Scroll Denver Food Reddit for five minutes and you’ll find the requisite “Can you believe this sandwich cost $20?” thread.

Dinner choices, like so many things right now, feel increasingly stratified. There’s the cheapish and labor-intensive cooking at home and stretching leftovers, or the takeout/eating out experience that’s increasingly expensive. What’s missing is that once-reliable in-between option that made weeknights easier without blowing the budget. Middle-ground food, like the middle class itself, feels like it’s slipping away.

Takeout used to be the pressure valve, the thing that kept us from burning out after returning from work, out of energy and willpower. Too tired to cook? Too broke for a sit-down restaurant? No problem, have some takeout tacos. But lately, even fast-casual feels like a decision you have to justify.

How did that happen? Not because restaurants suddenly got greedy, or because we all collectively broke Apple Wallet when money stopped feeling real. It’s not like restaurant owners banded together at their Annual Restaurant Owner Meeting and decided to spike prices for the heck of it. I don’t see the owner of my local pizzeria driving around town in a Ferrari.

If anything, it was inevitable. Restaurants are dealing with the same things the rest of us are — runaway rents, soaring food costs and, at least in Denver, a tipped minimum wage that’s nearly $5 higher per hour than that in notoriously expensive New York City. And all of this is happening in an industry that’s always operated on famously thin margins.

Unsurprisingly, a 2025 Expert Market Food & Beverage Industry Report, which surveyed restaurant professionals, found that 85 percent believe labor issues affect their business, with more than half pointing to wages and benefits as the single biggest threat to profitability. To cope, nearly two-thirds have raised prices. Almost one in five have raised them significantly.

So, yeah, this is why the math stops working at mealtime. A recent Newsweek article called the food and beverage sector “the canary in the coal mine,” one of the first sectors where economic anxiety shows up when people start tightening their belts. Which means that that $20 pad thai could be just the beginning.

The real loss isn’t any one dish or restaurant, but the ease of it all. Thai Tuesday didn’t disappear at my house because it stopped being good; it disappeared because it stopped being reasonable. The middle ground it occupied ghosted us, along with the idea that a weeknight meal could be both convenient and affordable.

Tonight, “What’s for dinner?” is about more than just food. It’s about time, money, burnout and what we’re willing to give up. Cooking means more work. Eating out means more money. And somewhere between the fridge and the menu board, we’re realizing, often with a side of sticker shock, that the way we eat now says as much about the economy as it does about our appetites.

Allyson Reedy is a Denver-area freelance writer, cookbook author and novelist. She is also a former Denver Post food writer. 

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Homeowners association fees for people living in condominiums or other multi-unit dwellings have been increasing year after year — doubling one year only to go up again the next — and the effect is crushing. The fees make housing unaffordable, pushing out existing owners and renters, but the fees also cause property values to decline as would-be buyers balk at outrageous monthly fees on top of high housing prices.

Fees increase for many reasons, but according to recent reporting by The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi, some of the biggest increases are a result spikes in property insurance premiums.

So profound is the problem in Colorado that in 2024, lawmakers gave the Colorado insurance commissioner two years and $329,863 to study the issue and report on their findings this January.

Now is the time for Colorado lawmakers to step up and help keep existing multi-unit housing affordable. Insurance releif will also assist single-family homes in subdivisions where HOAs have a hard time insuring community buildings and recreation centers.

We fear that since 2024, matters have only gotten worse for Coloradans living in multi-family units that share insurance coverage using an HOA. The extreme example is Broomfield, where condominium owners are now paying a premium for their property insurance because of the threat of wildfire — made apparent by the 2021 Marshall Fire fire that tore through Boulder County. The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi found some communities where HOA fees have doubled — or more — in response. And condominium housing values have plummetted 12% in a single year.

When the report is released this month, Colorado’s leaders need to take a long, hard look at how we can protect people from skyrocketing insurance costs and the subsequent increase in HOA fees. In theory, living in a condominium should protect people from skyrocketing insurance costs. If 50 people live under the same roof, sharing that cost burden of insuring that roof should be a fraction of the impact to individual homeowners. But because of complexities in the market, that is not the case.

“What we are seeing in the market over the past 12 months is that the premium increases seem to be stabilizing, but they are stabilizing at a place that’s really high,” said Michael Conway, Colorado’s insurance commissioner. “It is imperative to try to find ways to bring more affordability into the market. There isn’t an easy button. It’s going to take a lot of work.”

Conway said that the single biggest driver of homeowner’s insurance premium increases is hail damage claims. If you have ever seen roofers going door to door after a minor hail storm in Colorado, you might have an idea what is driving the claims and the costs.

In addition to the excess and sometimes dubious roof claims in Colorado, the condominiums are uniquely burdened by a shortage of companies offering insurance policies to multi-unit dwellings, especially in large complexes that require multi-million dollar policies with complex terms.

These units are insured through the surplus lines market — an insurance marketplace that exists largely unregulated for unique or high-risk properties. The nature of the market means that policies are not reviewed or approved by the Department of Insurance. The lack of standard language and other regulation also makes it more likely that HOAs will suffer surprises about what is and is not covered by these complex agreements. Instead the system relies on licensed agents to broker the deals and take a commission.

Colorado lawmakers need to take a long, hard look at the market for insurance for complex and hard-to-insure units. We are not suggesting that Colorado establish a state-owned insurance company for such units or even that it step up regulation. That ship has sailed.

But Colorado could play the role of a broker, providing free services to residents who live in HOA communities to help them navigate these systems, shop for options and perhaps qualify for Colorado’s new insurance of last resort.

That is just one of many ideas that lawmakers should investigate after the report is released this month.

Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, who was an author on the legislation requiring the study, said she is open to any and all suggestions.

“I’m eager to get my hands on the report in the next week or two and see what direction it might take us,” McCluskie told The Denver Post. “We should open every door and explore every option.”

McCluskie said residents in her mountain town communities are suffering from the insurance prices and are struggling to keep units insured and affordable.

Colorado lawmakers have a responsibility in 2026 to make this a top priority. The report will guide the way, but not if it sits on a shelf after it is released. There are ways to help HOAs navigate these systems and to create a fair field of competition for insurers, if only we can find the political will to make it happen.

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Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the former Colorado U.S. senator and congressman who served first as a Democrat and then as a Republican, died of natural causes Dec. 30 at his ranch in Ignacio, Colorado at age 92.

A member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Campbell grew up poor and spent part of his childhood in a California orphanage, yet he led a life of excelling. He became a judo champion in 1963, winning a gold medal at the Pan-American Games; served in the Air Force for four years where he earned his GED; went on to get degrees in physical education and fine arts at San Jose State University; and honed skills as a silversmith and jeweler. His Western belt buckles were prized.

He entered politics in 1982, first serving as a state legislator. He was next elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving rural Western Colorado from 1987 to 1993, then was elected to two terms in the U.S. Senate.

When Senator Campbell switched from being a registered Democrat to a Republican on March 3, 1995, “the switch was shocking and traumatic to his staff,” said Ken Lane, his longtime chief of staff. He quit soon after Campbell’s announcement.

Lane said there was lots of speculation about why Campbell became a Republican. A major irritant for Campbell, Lane recalled, was what the senator called the “elitist” attitude of Democratic leaders in Denver and Boulder, who found him too moderate. Campbell’s main support always came from the union stronghold of Pueblo, in southern Colorado.

It was known that Republican Senator and majority leader Bob Dole courted Campbell to make the switch, and once he did, Campbell was appointed chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Campbell relished the job, advocating for Tribal rights and spurring the creation of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historical Site in Colorado, where two of his ancestors had been killed by U.S. soldiers.

Dea Jacobson, who worked in his Grand Junction, Colorado office when he was a Democrat, called him a force of nature. “He could do anything he put his mind to,” she said. He was a licensed pilot, and he also earned a commercial driver’s license, which he used in 2000 and 2012 to drive huge Colorado Christmas trees to the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Though his party changed, Jacobson said, Campbell’s politics remained the same: “He was pro-choice, pro-union and, despite criticism from some environmentalists, he backed key legislation protecting Colorado’s public lands.” Over the years, Campbell became known as someone who’d horse trade to get the bills he cared about passed.

One of his major victories was passage of the Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993, which designated or expanded 19 wilderness areas. The landmark legislation had been 13 years in the making. Campbell also worked on the creation of Great Sand Dunes National Park and helped make the Black Canyon National Monument a national park.

Campbell had a major impact on Colorado’s Four Corners region. Working with the Tribes he changed the Animas–La Plata water project to protect the free-flowing Animas River, despite criticism from environmentalists over the pumping of water uphill into a dry basin. The deal fulfilled long-overdue water rights held by the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Tribes.

I’d called Campbell last October when I was writing a column about changes coming for the reservoir named after him — Lake Nighthorse — authorized by Congress in 1968 as part of the Animas-La Plata Project. I’d been told Campbell was in poor health, but he answered the phone, later telling me, “I’m suffering from old persons’ problems so I’m not following water wars these days. But don’t forget what Mark Twain said about water: ‘Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.’”

Jacobson wasn’t surprised that Nighthorse was affable in our conversation. “He loved newspaper people,” she recalled, and when they were on the road in rural Colorado, “he liked to stop in at a town’s weekly paper.” Though he didn’t drink, he might also visit a local bar or café to start a conversation with locals. Before long, she said, “he was holding court.”

Lane’s recollection was equally warm. “Ben was funny, irreverent and endearing, and he connected with people of all backgrounds.”

A private memorial service will be held by his family at their ranch in Ignacio, Colorado. He is survived by his wife Linda, his children Colin and Shanan, and four grandchildren.

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Durango, Colorado.

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What readers saw: The killing of driver in Minneapolis

Re: “ICE officer kills driver,” Jan. 8 news story

On Wednesday, a 37-year-old citizen was shot by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We don’t know why she was where she was; that will come out in the days ahead. And there is plenty of video. So Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, Vice President JD Vance, and even President Donald Trump can spin their lies, but we will know what occurred.

What’s disturbing is the rush to cover their asses and disparage the victim. Makes me want to throw up. This is what our nation has to face daily: an administration of liars and an agency that appears to believe they can do whatever they want and face no accountability. What’s next?

Deborah Harvey, Thornton

I am writing to express serious concern about recent public attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement following an incident where a woman attempted to use her vehicle to strike an ICE agent and completely disobeyed law enforcement instructions. Regardless of immigration policy views, attempting to injure or kill law enforcement is a grave act of violence and must be unequivocally condemned.

What is troubling is the rhetoric from some Democratic officials and commentators appearing to excuse violent conduct directed at ICE personnel. This is deeply problematic. The rule of law depends on consistent moral standards: violence and attempted homicide are unacceptable regardless of the identity of the victim or the political controversy surrounding their role. Clearly the vehicle was driven toward the agent.

Social science research on political violence and moral disengagement shows sustained rhetorical delegitimization of institutions increases the likelihood of real-world harm. When elected officials frame federal agents as inherently illegitimate or malicious, it erodes public trust and lowers social inhibitions against attacking them. This dynamic has historically preceded escalations in political violence, domestically and internationally.

Criticism of federal agencies is legitimate in a democratic society. However, ethical leadership requires a clear boundary between policy disagreement and the normalization — or tacit justification — of violence.

I urge our society to publicly affirm attempted vehicular assault against any law-enforcement officer is indefensible, and to encourage responsible rhetoric that does not endanger public servants or the public at large.

Silence or equivocation in moments like this is itself consequential. Clear moral leadership matters.

Kriss Perras, Colorado Springs

As a former member and chair of our city’s police Citizen Review Board, I am sharing thoughts on the Minneapolis ICE shooting videos I have watched. It did not appear to me that the ICE agents were in any physical danger unless they placed themselves in it.

I did not hear any commands from the agents to the driver who was killed. There were no de-escalation tactics, instead they escalated to the lethal use of force.

There are rules for the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies that direct officers not to pursue fleeing cars unless life is in danger or similar.

The assessments from the president and his administration do not comport with the evidence I have seen.

To me, this was an unnecessary escalation of the use of force that resulted in an unnecessary death.

As to the protesters who were maced, if you impede the legal actions of law enforcement, you can be arrested, or they can use non-lethal means such as mace.

The killing leaves me wondering whether ICE agents have been trained properly and I suspect there will be civil and criminal litigation to sort out officer immunity issues.

John W. Thomas, Fort Collins

Interfering with a federal ICE agent is a serious federal felony that can result in substantial fines and imprisonment. Assuming that the Colorado resident driver had a Colorado state driver’s license, the recommended actions when stopped by law enforcement are to stay calm, keep hands visible, provide your physical license, registration, and insurance when asked, but politely decline searches and self-incriminating answers. Comply with exiting the vehicle if ordered, but do not argue; dispute violations later in court. This AI-Gemini generated advice does not recommend trying to run the officer down!

The Colorado resident, nice as they might have been, made a fatal error in judgment.

No one should be defending activists who engage in the most foolish and dangerous actions! These activists would be much wiser to write letters to the editor of local papers or to relevant federal and state legislatures and officials. Officials should not be supporting kinetic protestors at all!

Take note of successful non-violent protests that worked (i.e., Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.). Once violence is initiated by the protester, much of the argument is lost.

In this case, a life was lost by not complying with law enforcement. One can contest law enforcement in court, but not adjudicate from behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. To support such actions is irreverent and, for an elected official, malicious.

Steven D. Kalavity, Fort Collins

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The president’s eleventh hour executive order to keep the coal-fired Unit 1 at the Craig Station in operation is the combination of this administration’s signature way of governing: disregard for science, climate change denial, dismissal of economic impact to rate-payers, misunderstanding of history, attempts to roll back progress, and overall imperiousness.

Unit 1 was on track to cease operations at the end of 2025. While this was a win for the public health and the environment, the five utilities that own it had decided in 2016 that the cheapest option was to retire and replace the aging plant. In the decade since utilities decided to retire Craig 1, they have been busy building new resources to replace the plant. Our Colorado health and safety, as well as affordability of power for consumers, is dependent on making steady progress towards our clean energy goals: retiring dirty and expensive coal plants and moving towards a clean, breathable future.

Colorado has transition plans in place that have been negotiated with our utilities, environmental advocates, workers, and residents. The Public Utilities Commission’s decisions and the energy-generation plans of our utilities are carefully considered to take into account the costs to rate-payers, just transitions for workers, and the necessary steps towards a clean energy future.

The Trump Administration doesn’t appear to care about any of that. As with the recent similarly ill-conceived and heavy-handed veto of the Arkansas Valley Conduit clean water project funding, Trump prioritizes superficial, punitive, Executive actions.

All of us suffer from his callousness and idiocy whether our Congresspeople are from his party or not, whether we voted for him or not. Our beautiful Colorado air, land and water must be protected. Our children don’t deserve record asthma rates, our residents deserve clean drinking water, and our outdoor enthusiasts deserve safe recreation.

Trump’s actions are not well thought-out, careful policy decisions. From dismantling scientific research institutions in Colorado to increasing our utility rates, his revenge tour will have real impacts on people’s lives, including those who voted for him.

It is worth noting that Venezuelan crude oil will not lower energy costs. We are years away from having the capacity to refine this very heavy, dirty petroleum and we do not use oil to power our electric grid.

Our environmental organizations have sought legal recourse and will continue to do so. As Legislators we will also continue to protect our State from his disastrous whims.

Meg Froelich is a state represenative in the Colorado Genearl Assembly and Mike Weissman is a state senator.

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Arizona and California’s chief water negotiators are coming for Colorado in a blistering public pressure campaign aimed at getting upper basin states to capitulate.

In an interview with the L.A. Times, the negotiator for California accused the upper basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico of clinging to “their most aggressive and rigid dreamland legal positions.”

In an op-ed for The Denver Post, Arizona’s negotiator suggested failing to come to the table with cuts could “let slip the dogs of war.”

This over-the-top hyperbole from both men illustrates just how poorly conversations to save the Colorado River are going behind closed doors. The federal government has given the seven states that rely on the Colorado River a deadline of Nov. 11 to commit to a general compromise on water use. Obviously, a consensus agreement would be far better than the Trump administration’s Department of Natural Resources implementing its own plan.

But when it comes to protecting Colorado’s interests, we will fire back with our own hyperbole — almost everyone is hurting from water restrictions during what has been deemed a “mega drought.” California and Arizona are overdue to share in that pain.

“When you see years that are like 2020 to 2021 where (Colorado) took an over 1 million acre foot reduction, that’s not a compensated reduction. No one delivered a check and kudos,” Rebecca Mitchell, Colorado River Commissioner and our state’s negotiator, told The Denver Post editorial board in an interview this week. “We did them because Mother Nature demanded them … Part of the issue is that no shortages were taken in the lower basin until 2022; meanwhile, during the period of these guidelines, we take shortages all the time.”

Some things are non-negotiable as the states work to divvy up the water that flows down the Colorado River every year. For example, Native American tribes should face smaller cuts than other users. The U.S. government forced indigenous peoples onto often inhospitable tracts of land, and now we must make good on promised water rights and water delivery. Tribal nations must be protected. In Arizona, almost half of the water flowing through the Central Arizona Project canal goes to Native American Tribes, meaning that Phoenix and its suburbs are going to face the lion’s share of the state’s cuts.

The other non-negotiable is that Colorado will not further curtail its use of the Colorado River without major concessions from California and Arizona.

Colorado’s water use is based on a prior appropriations system, which means that every year, some junior water rights holders do not get their full allotment because there isn’t enough snowpack. Lower basin states, meanwhile, have failed to adjust their use to compensate for the drought, draining the reserves in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The upper basin states use less water than what is allotted to them in the compact, while the lower basin states use more.

We fear that for too long, water managers up and down the river have been reluctant to implement the extreme measures needed. Because the harsh truth is that municipalities can only do so much. The vast majority of the water drawn from the Colorado River goes to agriculture and commercial interests, especially golf courses, industrial and data centers, oil and gas operations, and the Imperial Valley in California. These users are the ones who will be hit the hardest by coming reductions.

Denver Water users (who get most of their drinking water from snow melt that otherwise would flow into the Colorado River) have curtailed our use by 36% since 2000 despite a boom in population growth. Today, Denver Water users consume an average of 119 gallons per capita per day. Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District customers, which serves Los Angeles, use an average of 114 gallons per capita per day.

In Phoenix, residential users consume about 92 gallons per capita per day. In Las Vegas, the water use is 89 gallons per person per day, and a substantial amount of the city’s water is recycled, meaning it doesn’t come from the Colorado River.

While LA and Denver receive similar amounts of rainfall every year, Phoenix and Las Vegas are two of the driest cities in the country. If they can reduce their use so low, so can every other city in this nation.

Deserts like Phoenix and St. George, where less than an inch of rain falls every year and the high temperatures in summer often top 110 degrees, may have to follow Las Vegas and put a moratorium on golf courses unless they find a sustainable water alternative. And no, groundwater is not sustainable.

Farmers in the Imperial Valley, who faced cuts beginning in 2020 that led to some fields being left fallow, will have to reconsider their crops, invest in water-saving irrigation systems, and possibly reduce their yield. Everyone will pay for these changes at the grocery store, whether it is the increased price of meat as the price of alfalfa hay skyrockets, or the increased price of water-hungry produce like almonds and pistachios.

A compromise between states rather than a unilateral decision by the Department of the Interior, followed by a protracted legal battle, will reduce how drastic cuts are. Using less water today could start the recharge of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both of which are nearing dead pool status and are around 30% full.

Coloradans have always been ready to do our part to save the river, but we will not further cut our use to support reckless downstream users.

Everyone can pull together — municipalities preventing unsustainable growth and development, aesthetic or non-functional turf grass must be strictly limited and our agricultural communities must be supported as they transition to water efficient irrigation systems and less water-intensive crops.

This is an emergency, and Colorado’s water negotiators are right to stand firm defending Colorado.

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President Donald Trump would like Coloradans to know this holiday season that he wants our governor to “rot in hell” and that he wishes Mesa County’s district attorney, Dan Rubenstein, “only the worst.” All that anger directed at Coloradans is because our justice system is refusing to release a woman who was tried and convicted of fraud in relation to Trump’s illegal attempt to remain in office in 2020.

Trump’s embarrassing temper tantrums would be tolerable if they didn’t also come with real-world actions that hurt Coloradans — costing them their livelihoods, and yes, access to clean drinking water.

Gov. Jared Polis’ and Rep. Lauren Boebert’s responses to Trump give us hope that Americans can unite after Trump leaves office, as required by the U.S. Constitution, in January 2029. Trump will not succeed in his effort to divide Coloradans who love one another despite our political differences.

Trump is hurting our more liberal-minded residents in Boulder County with his decision to first cut dozens of jobs at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and then his pledge to dismantle the headquarters entirely.

And now Trump will hurt more conservative-minded Coloradans with his veto of $1.2 billion in federal funding for a clean-drinking water pipeline to residents in eastern Pueblo County who have been advised for years not to drink well water because of contamination.

Gov. Jared Polis’ response to all of this has been calm, dignified and dedicated to preserving the integrity of our justice system.

“I hope the President’s resolution this year is to spend less time online talking about me and more on making America more affordable by stopping his disastrous tariffs and fixing rising health care costs. Finally, I wish all Americans, including the President and all the wonderful people across the political spectrum, a happy, healthy and productive New Year,” Polis said Wednesday.

Boebert shot back at Trump’s veto of her bill, telling 9News that: “If this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans, that’s on them … Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics.”

Before the New Year, Trump ordered his administration to move the work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research from Boulder to “another entity or location.”

The administration attempted to blame the move on NCAR’s work studying climate change. The White House issued a statement to The Denver Post calling NCAR “the premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy.”

We disagree strongly with both of the assertions in that statement. First, the global climate is warming, and a vast amount of scientific research indicates that the trend is being driven in large part by the increase in greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane, among others) in our atmosphere.

Second, NCAR’s work is professional, scientifically based and doesn’t carry a hint of the “alarmism” that we see from many politicians who talk about an extinction-level event occurring in a few years.

But we also don’t believe for a moment that “climate change alarmism” is the real reason behind Trump’s decision to dismantle NCAR — a federal agency we must remind the president that was created by Congress and funded by Congress and protected from unilateral termination by the executive branch.

Trump’s decision came rapidly after Colorado officials refused Trump’s demand that Tina Peters be released from jail. Peters, a former clerk and recorder from Mesa County, was convicted of using fraudulent means to give a random man access to the county’s voting equipment. Peters believed Trump’s lies that the 2020 election had been stolen. She stole credentials from one of her employees and brought a man into a secure area where he accessed data from vote-counting machines. Later, she tried to cover up her actions.

The data did not show any evidence of voter fraud.

But that hasn’t prevented Trump from trying to pardon her and now from retaliating against Colorado officials who are merely upholding the work of a jury of Peter’s peers who found her guilty.

Hundreds of federal workers in Colorado have already lost their jobs as a result of Trump’s policies. Then those employees who remained suffered under the federal shutdown. Now, Trump is coming again for federal workers, claiming he is trying to reduce the federal debt and deficit. But Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill added more to the federal deficit than what he has cut so far.

Which brings us to Trump’s most recent retaliatory action against Colorado, which he says was done in the name of cutting the federal budget and “restoring fiscal sanity.”

We cannot argue with Trump that the $1.3 billion price tag to bring clean drinking water to 50,000 residents is steep. But it is not wasteful. This is a necessary and long-awaited public infrastructure project. The project has been thoroughly vetted and is shovel-ready.

Trump’s veto is a black eye on his administration, and his outlandish words and actions only underline why he is wholly unfit to serve as president of the United States of America.

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Mayor Mike Johnston has a plan to infuse our tax dollars into the housing crisis to help build affordable housing in a city that has become all but unobtainable for middle-class Coloradans.

But we have to agree with Denver city council members who expressed grave concerns about the plan to raise Denver’s sales tax to fund a new venture into affordable housing for the city.

“I will support it going to the voters but we have to be honest; good intentions exist but the clarity and specificity doesn’t,” Councilwoman Jamie Torres said this month while casting her vote to help place it on the ballot in November.

Denver voters should not approve this dedicated sales-tax increase, at least not without a more thoroughly vetted plan. Johnston does have a vision that he spent an hour sharing with The Post editorial board, but the Affordable Denver Fund needs more scrutiny than it has received in the weeks since Johnston first unveiled the proposal.

If voters approve the $100 million-a-year increase in sales tax, it will be up to Denver City Council to approve spending plans. In other words, this is a tax-first, get-the-details-later approach that has resulted in mixed success for city voters in the past.

For example, Denver’s preschool program was a smashing success that has helped thousands of kids access quality early childhood education since 2006. The Educate Denver sales tax is getting scholarship money into the hands of seniors graduating from Denver high schools but has amassed a $30 million fund. The fund has not moved to reduce its sales tax rate of 0.08%.

Denver needs more affordable housing – particularly housing for Denverites who are making less than $60,000 a year. These middle-class and low-income Coloradans are falling through the cracks. They can’t qualify for subsidized housing through Section 8 (Housing Choice Vouchers) or Denver’s many public housing units but also struggle to afford market-rate rents.

But the city needs a concrete plan to make a dent in the housing crisis, especially given that this 0.5% sales tax would be in place for the next 40 years. Johnston should go back to the drawing board and come up with a proposal that provides voters with more details for how $100 million a year will create affordable housing in Denver. As it’s written now, the ballot language says the money will be used to: increase “production, preservation, financing, acquisition, conversion, (and) subsidies” for housing deemed affordable for those making less than 80% of the area median income. It also could be used for a homebuyer assistance program for those making less than 120% of the area median income. Those income targets feel right, but the “First Year Plan” for how to actually spend the money will be created by the manager of finance and the Department of Housing Stability sometime between the November election and Jan. 30, 2025. Voters need that plan now to judge whether this is a good idea.

We do like many of Johnston’s ideas, especially his plan to emphasize the acquisition of existing affordable housing in Denver, either through direct purchase or the purchase of an easement, to protect it forever from becoming new luxury housing. Johnston understands the housing market and wants to leverage the tax to dollars with other state and federal funding to build new units, preserve existing units, help first-time homebuyers escape the rental market, and help renters on the verge of eviction.

In the meantime, Johnston should select one key initiative in his proposal, find existing funding, and run a pilot program to demonstrate how his Affordable Denver Fund will work on a $100 million-a-year budget. Then build a “First Year Plan” around that success. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Denver didn’t become unaffordable overnight. It’s OK if the mayor doesn’t solve this problem in his four-year term in office.

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