Some progressive Colorado politicians want to ban unequal pricing for what they call “captive consumers,” but when it comes to those same consumers paying taxes, they fully endorse price inequality.
Legislative Double Standards
During the 2026 legislative session, leftist lawmakers introduced House Bill 26-1012 to prevent companies from “price gouging” at places like sporting events or airports, where consumers are “captive.”
As previously explained, higher prices in such scenarios represent market realities and are not caused by companies being extra-greedy when selling products at a baseball game.
Besides which, people have agency, and willingly going to the airport does not automatically make someone “captive.”
At the end of the day, if prices are too high, people will not pay them, and the companies will be forced to lower prices or close.
Few things actually represent the realities of supply and demand more than sporting events and airports, yet ironically, one of the bill’s sponsors, Fort Collins Democrat Yara Zokaie, claimed, “That isn’t a free market. It’s exploitation.”
Thankfully, the bill died in committee despite sponsors’ best efforts to double-speak it into passing.
Unfortunately, the sponsors now support punishing actual captive consumers in the form of a soak-the-rich progressive income tax.
Taxpayers as Captive Consumers
Apparently, for Zokaie, consumers paying different rates for the same product due to supply and demand is unfair because consumers are “captive,” but taxpayers, held at government gunpoint, paying different tax rates is somehow fair.
In a recent video, Zokaie spoke alongside far-left online influencer Hasan Piker, a Communist and outspoken fan of mass-murderer Mao Zedong, making her case against the Colorado’s flat income tax.
To her, it is horrible that everyone pays the same tax rate because, apparently, it’s what the billionaires want and somehow it creates inequality.
Really, the state’s flat tax is exactly what has made Colorado appealing and kept the state’s economy rolling along despite progressive legislators’ job-killing policies.
The fact that you pay the same tax rate as your boss, as the owner of your company, as your barista, and as the janitor at work is the epitome of tax fairness. Everyone has buy-in, and you can sleep soundly knowing no one is arbitrarily being forced to pay more or less.
That is exactly what would change if voters implement a progressive state income tax via Initiative 195 at the ballot; arbitrary tax rates based on arbitrary income thresholds to punish people based on envy while enriching state government in the process.
Who’s Actually Coerced
However, what is the last and most important difference between the “captive consumers” of a football game and the taxpayers of Colorado?
One has agency and consent in every step of the process. They choose the what, when, where, how, and why of spending money at the football game, and they can ultimately choose not to buy anything.
The taxpayer? They are forced to foot the bill for things they don’t like, don’t need, and don’t want, and must do so or go to jail.
Colorado’s would-be central planners hope you don’t understand the difference come November.
