Vail Daily Column: Colorado Squeezed by Federal Tariffs and State Regulations

Aspen —"Colorado remains a great place to live, but unfortunately, we are getting hammered economically from both sides of the political spectrum."

That’s the opening salvo from Feinsinger’s latest column in the Vail Daily, and it lands with the heavy thud of a truth locals have been feeling in their wallets for months. The metaphor isn’t subtle — we are caught in a vise. One jaw is Washington, D.C., pushing down with tariffs, high interest rates, and a gas price surge that started with a war with Iran. The other jaw is the Colorado State Capitol, tightening its grip with regulations and taxes that make doing business here feel like wading through molasses.

Feinsinger wrote in the Vail Daily that the result is a state that used to rank 34th in cost-of-living and now sits at a dismal 47th. We are one of the least affordable places in the country. We are also one of the most regulated. The business-competitiveness ranking has plummeted 14 spots to number 25.

It’s easy to blame the feds. It’s tempting to point at the national chaos and say, "We can’t control what happens in D.C." But Feinsinger argues that the numbers don’t lie. These rankings compare Colorado to other states operating under the same federal government. If we’re struggling more than our neighbors, the problem isn’t just the guy in the Oval Office. It’s us.

The cycle is brutal in its simplicity. A new regulation is born, usually with good intentions. It costs a business, a school, or a landlord money to comply. To pay for the people and money needed to enforce that rule, government raises fees or taxes. Those businesses pass the cost on to you and me through higher prices. Or they leave. Or they stay but stop hiring.

Entrepreneurs looking at Colorado these days aren't just looking at the view. They’re looking at the cost structure. They’re comparing us to Utah. They’re putting us lower on the list. Do that once, and nobody notices. Do it hundreds of times, and you have a very expensive place to live.

The column points to Colorado’s original, extraordinarily restrictive AI law as a prime example. Even though it was rewritten, the initial signal sent to one of America’s fastest-growing industries was clear: Think twice before locating here.

This isn’t just about big business. It’s about the property tax bill on your house. It’s about the price of the milk you buy at the Safeway in Glenwood Springs. It’s about whether the local manufacturer expands or moves its warehouse to a state that doesn’t squeeze it quite so hard.

Feinsinger notes that affordability, regulation, taxes, and business competitiveness aren’t separate problems. They feed one another. It’s a feedback loop. More regulation means higher costs. Higher costs mean higher prices. Higher prices mean lower affordability. And lower affordability drives away the very jobs and investment needed to keep the economy stable.

The political debate, both nationally and locally, is pursuing two different economic philosophies that produce the same result. We are being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste. Washington pushes from one end. The state Capitol pushes from the other. And the people of Colorado, including the folks who live here and pay the bills, are the paste getting pushed out.

Stand there long enough and you start to wonder if the squeeze is intentional or just the natural result of a hundred small decisions made by people who didn’t quite see how they added up. The vision is still there. The mountains are still tall. But the cost of staying in the valley just went up, again.