Engage Colorado - Smarter and the Curly Neal Assist

Newsletter — Issue 48 — Wednesday, September 16, 2026

This newsletter has been published by Engage Colorado.

The Open Letter

Smarter and the Curly Neal Assist

This Engage Colorado Newsletter reflects the personal opinions of Dan Caruso, written with the support of the Caruso Ventures team. The Ensuring Colorado's Innovation Future Coalition did not review and has not endorsed this Engage Colorado Newsletter.

If you are reading this, you have probably read Dumb and Dumber. This one is about Smarter — and Smarter is what you can do to help Colorado's younger and next generation avoid the devastating aftermath of a graduated income tax.

At the end of this, I am asking you to lend a hand. If you are short on time, scroll down and, if you are so inclined, click the link and give us a Curly Neal Assist.

Recall where we left Lloyd Christmas. He asked Mary Swanson flat out what the chances were of a guy like him ending up with a girl like her. Not good, she told him. One out of a million.

Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance. YEAH!

Lloyd had terrible odds. Though all he needed was one person — Mary Swanson — to say yes. And in real life, she did. Lauren Holly, who played Mary, married Jim Carrey two years after they met during the filming.

Colorado needs five to say yes.

Those five carry more weight with Colorado voters on a tax question than every campaign ad that will be funded by both sides of the aisle.

If all five say publicly that a graduated income tax would damage Colorado, our one-in-a-million starts looking more like a bet that the Globetrotters will beat the Generals. If you're too young to know what a Globetrotter was, ask Claude.

Sneak preview. You are about to learn that one of the five is already a yes. That leaves four.

But the other four need your help. They need an assist — the way Curly Neal dribbled through three defenders and put the ball in Meadowlark Lemon's hands for the hook shot.

You are Curly Neal. If you're too young to know what a Curly Neal was, ask Claude.

Dumb

Recall that Dumb was the Colorado AI Act — Senate Bill 24-205, passed in 2024, and the single biggest blow to Colorado's reputation as a state that welcomes tech and innovation.

It triggered the Open Letter, Ensuring Colorado's Innovation Future, signed by more than 570 founders, investors, operators, and community leaders. That letter and the coalition behind it eventually contributed to the AI Act's repeal: this past May, Senate Bill 26-189 replaced it, trading algorithmic discrimination and duty-of-care mandates for disclosure and transparency requirements. The fix took two years, and by the time it landed Colorado had already become a state that innovators avoid.

Dumber

Dumber is Amendment 87, the Colorado graduated income tax. You may remember it by its previous name, Initiative 195. Amendment 87 is the name you will see on your ballot.

It would replace Colorado's 4.4% flat rate with six brackets topping out at 8.4%, placing Colorado alongside California, New York, and New Jersey among the ten highest income tax states in the country. Those states are losing people and money. In a single year California lost $12.9 billion in adjusted gross income and 209,000 residents on net, New York $10.6 billion and 164,000, Massachusetts $4.2 billion, and New Jersey $2.8 billion.

Colorado competes with Texas, Florida, Nevada, and Tennessee, all of which have no income tax at all, and with Arizona, North Carolina, and Utah, which range from 2.5% to 4.5%. That is where the money went.

On the same ballot sits Proposition 136, which you may remember as Initiative 232. It caps Colorado's income tax rate at 4.4% and keeps it there. This would keep Colorado competitive with the states that are winning this competition, rather than the ones people are leaving.

Here's Where You Come In

Open Letter One worked. That was Ensuring Colorado's Innovation Future — the letter more than 570 of us signed after the AI Act passed, and the AI Act is now repealed.

So we wrote a second one. Support Proposition 136 and Oppose Amendment 87 is addressed to four of the same five people who need to say yes — Weiser, Bennet, Hickenlooper, and Johnston. It asks each of them to do four:

Why was Governor Polis excluded? Because he already joined us and signed Open Letter #2. Thanks, Governor, for your bold leadership.

More than 75 Colorado technology, business, and civic leaders have already signed. They did this over three days — without knowing who else would be bold enough to put their signatures in public. Without them, I wouldn't be publishing it.

We are Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters, and we are Coloradans first.

Add your name. Then send it to three people who should add theirs. Better yet, send it to six!

Ballots start getting mailed to voters on October 2. Thank you for the Curly Neal assist.

If We Work Together, the Sky's the Limit

Colorado can be the most attractive innovation ecosystem in the world, and every Coloradan will share in the economic and cultural prosperity that results from being the world's leading geography for innovation. This is the Innovation Vision for Colorado.

But to have a realistic chance of achieving this vision, we must defeat Amendment 87.

Go Deeper

— Dan Caruso, Engage Colorado

Managing Director of Caruso Ventures, Host of The Bear Roars Podcast, and Board Chair of Tulagi Music Fest