Vail Daily Column Argues Colorado's High Costs Stem From Taxes and Regulation

Aspen —Colorado is the fourth most expensive state in America. That’s not a vibe. It’s a ranking.

The Vail Daily published a column by Lewis on Tuesday that cuts through the usual political noise about "greedy companies." The data tells a different story. According to CNBC’s cost of living study, Colorado dropped from 35th to 47th in affordability between 2010 and 2025. We went from mid-pack to near the bottom in a single decade.

Lewis argues that politicians are chasing the wrong villains. He points out that spending on furniture, transportation services, motor vehicles, clothing, and gas has actually gone down. Food is up a negligible 0.2%. The real killers are housing, healthcare, and taxes.

Read that again. The things politicians blame — corporate greed, price gouging — are not where the money is going.

The numbers are stark. In 2000, taxes and fees took 12.6% of a typical household budget. By 2022, that figure climbed to over 14.2%. Lewis calculates that these incremental increases amount to more than $4,000 per year for every taxpayer, adjusted for inflation. Housing jumped from 11.9% to 13.7% of the budget. Healthcare rose from 7.3% to 9.2%.

This isn’t a federal problem, though the column takes a swipe at Washington’s handling of gas prices and interest rates. This is a state-level failure.

Lewis, writing from Eagle County, highlights the local reality. Residents have approved 19 tax initiatives in the county since 2000. Six of those were for District RE-50. Statewide, voters have approved 27 school tax increases. Nationwide, the number of individual tax hikes since 2000 is in the thousands.

TABOR was supposed to be a guardrail. It was intended to hold tax increases in line with inflation. Lewis calls it "barely a speed bump." It didn’t stop the bleeding.

Regulation is the other half of the equation. Colorado is now the sixth most regulated state in the nation. Even as a few bills tried to simplify rules, the state added 2.4% more regulations in 2025 alone.

Lewis characterizes the current state strategy as "tax, subsidize and regulate." He says our leaders recognize the problem. They want to fix it. But the data shows they’ve made things markedly worse.

He invokes a specific cultural reference to describe our current trajectory: a "George Costanza moment." In the Seinfeld episode, George decides his life is in shambles and starts doing the opposite of everything he would normally do. Lewis suggests it’s time for state leaders to do exactly that.

The obvious take is that we need more money in schools and more rules on big business. Lewis argues the data proves the opposite. We need less tax, less regulation, and a fundamental shift in how we structure state spending.

The column doesn’t offer a detailed policy roadmap for the "opposite" strategy, but it makes one thing clear: the current approach isn’t working. We are paying more for everything that matters, and we’re adding red tape on top of the bill.

For folks in the valley, this hits home. Property taxes are up. School levies keep coming to a vote. Health insurance premiums climb. The "tax, subsidize and regulate" model has turned Colorado into a high-cost trap for the very people it claims to protect.

Lewis isn’t asking for a miracle. He’s asking for a reversal of course. The data is hard to argue with. We dropped 12 spots in national affordability rankings while adding thousands of tax increases and billions in new regulations.

The next time a politician promises to "control" prices, ask them which line item they’re targeting. If the answer is gas or groceries, they’re missing the point. The money is going to taxes, housing, and healthcare.

That’s where the fix has to start.