President Demands Release of Political Prisoner While Governor Lectures on Tariffs and Christmas – But Who’s Really Making Life Expensive?
High Country Advocate Staff
President Donald Trump escalated his attack on Colorado Governor Jared Polis this week, calling him a “SLEAZEBAG” on Truth Social for refusing to release Tina Peters from state custody. The 70-year-old Gold Star mother and former Mesa County Clerk is serving nine years in prison – a punishment Trump calls grotesquely disproportionate in a state notorious for being soft on actual crime.
“The SLEAZEBAG Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, refuses to allow an elderly woman, Tina Peters, who was unfairly convicted of what the Democrats do, cheating on Elections, out of jail!” Trump wrote Wednesday. “She was convicted for trying to stop Democrats from stealing Colorado Votes in the Election.”
The president’s demand comes as his Department of Justice formally requested Colorado transfer Peters to federal custody – a move that would allow Trump to potentially pardon her. Polis has refused.
The contrast is stark. Colorado has spent years reducing penalties for serious crimes through “criminal justice reform” that critics say has turned Denver into a haven for property crime. Retail theft is effectively decriminalized. Car theft barely makes news.
Yet Peters – accused of copying election system data she believed showed vulnerabilities – received nine years. No one else involved in her case was charged. When Colorado’s Secretary of State posted actual BIOS passwords for voting equipment in 34 counties online for four months in 2024, there were no raids, no arrests, no prosecutions. A staffer quietly left.
The message is clear: question election procedures, go to prison. Actually expose election systems, nothing happens.
Polis Fires Back – But His Numbers Don’t Add Up
Polis responded by pivoting to economics rather than addressing the double standard.
“We would all benefit if the President spent less time posting attacks and instead worked on ending tariffs and making Christmas more affordable for American families,” Polis said Thursday.
It was calculated deflection – an attempt to shift attention from the Peters controversy to economic anxiety. But the numbers tell a different story than Polis wants told.
Trump’s proposed $2,000 tariff dividend checks for middle-income Americans are confirmed for mid-2026. During a December 2 cabinet meeting, Trump announced tariff revenue would be returned as dividend refund checks, stating “we’re going to be giving a nice dividend to the people in addition to reducing debt.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the checks would target working and middle-income families, though congressional approval is required. While critics claim tariffs drive inflation, the policy has generated substantial federal revenue – estimates range from $195 billion to over $400 billion. The administration argues this can reduce dependence on income taxes.
For many Americans, tariff impacts have been offset by declining gasoline prices, continued wage growth, and record stock market highs through 2025. Whether tariffs help or hurt depends on individual circumstances.
But one thing is certain: Trump’s economic policies have a revenue generation component. Colorado’s approach has been the opposite.
Colorado’s $1 Billion Hole That Keeps Getting Deeper
While Polis lectures Trump about affordability, Colorado faces a structural budget crisis lawmakers admit will repeat annually.
In November 2025, Colorado’s Joint Budget Committee was told the state faces annual shortfalls of roughly $1 billion “predominantly caused by the skyrocketing cost of Medicaid.” Legislative Council staff warned: “We will find ourselves in exactly the same situation next year.”
Since fiscal year 2018-19, state spending on Medicaid has grown 43% – $1.7 billion – far outpacing inflation. To balance the 2025-26 budget, lawmakers tapped one-time cash funds and reserves. Those options are now exhausted.
Then came federal tax changes in July 2025, reducing Colorado’s corporate tax revenue by an estimated $1.2 billion in a single fiscal year – bigger than the revenue hole during the Great Recession. Colorado’s required 15% budget reserve would drop to just 9% if used to cover the shortfall. That wouldn’t weather even a moderate recession.
When You Can’t Pay for School Lunches Without Raising Taxes
Colorado’s budget dysfunction became undeniable in November 2025 when voters approved two emergency ballot measures just to keep funding free school lunches.
Proposition FF, passed in 2022, was supposed to fund free meals by limiting tax deductions for households earning over $300,000. But the program immediately ran short. By 2025, lawmakers returned to voters. Proposition LL allowed the state to keep $12.4 million in excess TABOR revenue. Proposition MM raised taxes again on the same high earners to generate an additional $95 million annually.
Both passed. But a program launched three years ago requiring emergency voter intervention to avoid collapse reveals everything about how Colorado budgets.
The program was “initially expected to cost up to $80 million a year” but its “true cost is now projected to be at least $150 million” – an 88% cost overrun in three years.
Colorado’s budgeting pattern: promise programs, underestimate costs, come back for more money, repeat.
The Lottery No One Wanted
Perhaps nothing better illustrates Colorado’s priorities than the OmniSalud health insurance lottery.
In November 2025, the state held a lottery to determine which undocumented immigrants would receive subsidized health insurance in 2026. Of 12,000 undocumented residents who received subsidies in 2025, more than 5,000 lost coverage because the state couldn’t afford to continue the program.
Available subsidies dropped from 12,000 to approximately 6,700 for 2026 due to “reduced funding.”
Diana Pineda, executive director of Vuela for Health, told Colorado Public Radio: “I don’t know if this is the most fair, but I don’t know what else can be possible.”
The answer: a lottery. A random drawing to determine who gets taxpayer-funded benefits.
Meanwhile, Tina Peters marked her second consecutive year behind bars on her late son’s birthday. Remington Peters was a U.S. Navy SEAL killed in a training accident. Four Navy SEALs currently serve in Congress. None have publicly advocated for the mother of a fallen teammate.
The Question Polis Won’t Answer
When Trump calls Polis a “sleazebag,” he’s speaking to a contrast Colorado’s establishment desperately wants ignored.
One state prosecutes a 70-year-old election clerk with maximum severity while letting the Secretary of State’s office walk away from a vastly larger security breach. A state that can’t fund school lunches three years after promising them. A state facing annual billion-dollar budget holes with no plan except raise taxes and hope. A state running lotteries to decide which undocumented immigrants get health subsidies while cutting services for citizens.
Against this: a president promising to return tariff revenue directly to middle-income families, demanding release of a political prisoner, and generating federal revenue that – whatever its economic trade-offs – at least exists.
Polis wants voters focused on Christmas gift prices. Trump wants them focused on why Tina Peters is in prison while those who actually compromised Colorado’s election systems are not.
That’s not about tariffs or Christmas trees. It’s about which government has its priorities backwards.
The state lecturing Washington about affordability can’t keep its own budget balanced, its own programs funded, or its own justice system consistent. Colorado’s structural deficit isn’t Trump’s fault. The school lunch funding crisis isn’t Trump’s fault. The health insurance lottery isn’t Trump’s fault.
These are homegrown failures – the result of years of promising more than the state can deliver, expanding programs faster than revenue can sustain them, and prosecuting political enemies while actual threats walk free.
When Trump calls Polis a sleazebag, he’s not making an economic argument. He’s making a priorities argument. And Colorado’s collapsing budget – requiring emergency tax hikes for school lunches while holding lotteries for immigrant health care – suggests the president has a point.
The numbers don’t lie. The double standards are documented. And Tina Peters is still behind bars while the password breach perpetrators are not.
Colorado can lecture about tariffs and Christmas affordability all it wants. But the state’s own fiscal house is burning down, and no amount of finger-pointing at Washington will put out that fire.
Editor’s Note: The High Country Advocate has extensively covered the Tina Peters case, including documentation of the 2024 Secretary of State password breach and sentencing disparities in Colorado’s election-related prosecutions. Public records confirm the state’s ongoing structural budget deficit and the November 2025 ballot measures required to maintain school lunch funding.
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