There’s more than one silver lining to the fiscal straits that will bring the Legislature back in a special session at the Capitol on Thursday at the behest of Gov. Jared Polis. Taking stock of those upsides should help Coloradans put the multiday gathering in perspective.

One positive, as noted in a commentary in today’s Gazette by Advance Colorado’s Michael Fields, is that a lot of the deficit lawmakers will have to address for the current fiscal year actually represents money that will go back into the household budgets of taxpayers. That’s right: The Legislature’s budgetary boondoggle is a benefit to rank-and-file taxpayers.

As Fields explains, $460 million of Colorado’s estimated $783 million budget shortfall is due to individual income tax relief enacted by Congress under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including federal tax breaks on overtime pay. The rest of the deficit, similarly, is due to the act’s tax relief for business — our job creators — including for a lot for small businesses.

All of that relief reduces the flow of revenue into Colorado’s treasury because our state’s taxes are based on taxpayers’ adjusted gross income on their federal returns. So, federal tax cuts mean less money for state coffers, too — hence, the deficit — but more for taxpayers.

In other words, when you hear politicians at the Capitol carp about how the congressional act, championed by the Trump administration, has “cost” our state, understand that they’re talking about the state government’s budget — not yours.

Another silver lining — as the governor made clear when he met with The Gazette’s editorial board this month — is what state government services lawmakers won’t cut when paring spending to address the deficit. Most notably, public safety. In a state battered by a yearslong crime wave and betrayed by a soft-on-crime Legislature under ruling Democrats, it’s good to know law enforcement and corrections will be kept whole for the moment.

Meanwhile, there’s another beneficiary of the fiscal foibles that will reconvene the Legislature this week, one that has no direct connection to the deficit or the state budget. It will be the Legislature’s attempt to make major repairs to — or even scrap — a bill it passed last year on the regulation of artificial intelligence in our state.

The misguided measure that emerged from the 2024 General Assembly stands to stifle rather than foster Colorado’s budding AI development — as acknowledged by even Polis, who signed it into law, as well as the lawmakers who had sponsored it. Let’s hope lawmakers act now; the bill takes effect Feb. 1.

We would be remiss if we didn’t offer some perspective on the deficit. To the extent it represents a crisis, it is one of the Legislature’s own making — not Washington’s. Sure, any jab at President Donald Trump makes for an applause line among Centennial State Democrats. But blame for the glaring budget gap rests fully on the doorstep of 200 East Colfax Ave. in Denver.

It was Polis and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature who ran up the state’s tab, growing the budget year after year, expanding Medicaid spending and a host of other state government programs. They did so not only at the expense of historic state responsibilities like maintaining our highways, but also at the risk Congress someday would wake up and realize the U.S. government was $37 trillion in debt.

That awakening occurred in November, of course. And while the current fiscal year’s deficit was triggered by the federal tax cuts, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s cutbacks to Medicaid in the coming fiscal year will set off a whole new round of wailing and gnashing of teeth at the Capitol.

It could have been avoided with some fiscal forethought and moderation.

THE GAZETTE EDITORIAL BOARD