If Douglas Bruce is elected county commissioner this November, he will turn over his entire $63,000 government salary to charity. Regardless of his reputation to some as an in-your-face, outspoken naysayer of government spending (Bruce says overspending) he is steadfast in his commitment to make government accountable for every penny spent. Bruce is adamantly against frivolous government spending – his campaign literature promotes his pledge to “never vote to raise your taxes, put your family into debt or take away your tax refunds.”Bruce is the well-known author of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) Amendment, approved by voters in 1992. At the same, he won voter approval for cutting Colorado Springs’ taxes for telephone, electric, gas and cable television bills. He has challenged the city’s streetlight tax, open space tax and increased taxes for the library district. Bruce said the government should target its dollars to the basics: roads and law enforcement, and those basics of government spending do not rule out other programs, like parks and recreation. However, he said that fine-tuning the system and the government programs is imperative.”I am willing to rank things (programs) in terms of priorities,” Bruce said.If elected, Bruce plans to visit every park system in the county. He is also open to a consolidation of the city and county park functions. Bruce said it could be more cost effective to combine the park and recreation administration duties.In Bruce’s eyes, there is too much fluff in government. “Why should any county official make more money than the governor’s $90,000 salary”? Bruce asked. Bruce said the county social services administrator could not tell him how many optional programs the department administered when they talked at a recent breakfast. Bruce said the reports handed out at the breakfast meeting were five years old. As the county commissioner, Bruce will demand accountability for all programs. And he is not fond of fluff, like city and county sponsored working-type luncheons that cost $1,000 or more.Bruce is all about streamlining government spending and the administrative process. “I want to get down to the brass tax of the county’s budget, and I’ll be that commissioner who reads line 14 of the budget,” Bruce said. “I am a nerd, but when I was in high school they called us the brains. What do people have to lose if they have one county commissioner who is willing to ask questions and scrutinize the process?”The government gets involved in too many projects. Former President Ronald Reagan was my role model, and I emulate him.” Bruce said he and Reagan shared the belief that the government should do five programs efficiently instead of 100 programs poorly.Bruce stands for individual property rights, but harbors a genuine concern about water issues in Falcon and eastern Colorado. He said the county planning commission does have a responsibility to ensure the government protects property rights. That includes individual well rights. Bruce believes that planning and development must consider the subterranean right of its neighbors. “People have a right to develop their own property with a few limitations and the first is water,” Bruce said. “If you are on well water, that well water is a communal property right, and if you tap into an aquifer – the underground lake – draining it, you are taking from your neighbors. He said the 100-year and 300-year rule is a “joke.” How can people predict that far in advance, Bruce asked.However, he does not believe that the neighbors have a right to tell a private property owner what to do because a new development might infringe on their individual scenic views.Bruce is pro-firearms as well, and, besides his penchant toward fiscal conservatism, he is socially conservative. He is pro-life and believes in traditional family values. Although he believes that the people need to know the candidates’ philosophies, he does not believe that government should dictate their own beliefs to the people. He will reign in the government if they tread on moral ground. He said that the county government was in violation of the Constitution when it transferred money, which had been placed in the county treasury by a local charity, to Planned Parenthood. Regardless of the legality of abortion, Bruce said Memorial Hospital, as a city-owned hospital, should not be performing abortions on the premises.Bruce is fiercely against subsidies for developers and anyone else. He is against a regional transit authority. He promises to pay his own way when it comes to work-related trips. As he mentioned at the Falcon business forum, he will work to eliminate the Code of the West. He takes no campaign money from special interest groups.He also advocates the county outsourcing services like road repair, if a private business is able to save money on a certain project and “do it better” than the county.Who is the man behind the pleas for limited government and personal freedom? Bruce graduated from Pomona College in California with a double major in history and government. He received a law degree from the University of Southern California, and practiced as a deputy district attorney at the early age of 23. After five-plus years as a prosecutor, he donated his time to help the victims of crime. Citing one of his campaign brochures, “Douglas Bruce stopped practicing law because courts needed major reform from the outside.” Bruce is currently able to serve the public, free from “money,” because of investments.Bruce is running for county commissioner as the sole nominee of the Republican Party.Although he said it sounds tedious to others, Bruce said, when he can save the people money, he gets a good feeling.
