disagrees with my take on the budget plan of Colorado Gov. Bill Owens–but I can’t quite figure out where it is we are supposed to disagree.

Poulson accuses me of “overlook[ing] several factors” that have contributed to the state’s budget problems. The first is the absence of a rainy-day fund in the budget–to which I alluded when I noted that the state’s budget rules don’t take adequate account of the effects of recessions. The second is the state’s constitutionally mandated education spending–which I explicitly mentioned. I may not have gone into these things in as much detail as Poulson preferred, but that’s not the same as overlooking them.

Poulson also objects to my statement that “Owens’s plan foresees a tighter constraint on the growth of the budget than the rule that ALEC and the National Tax Limitation Committee want other states to adopt.” Again, it’s not clear what substantive disagreement he has with me here. The ALEC rule, as Poulson notes, is to restrict revenue and spending growth so that they grow no faster than inflation plus population growth. My point was that under Owens’s plan, over a ten-year period revenue and spending growth would be even lower than that. Poulson does not dispute that.

And both of us think that Colorado voters should reject the governor’s plan. So what’s his problem with me?