Monthly Archives: April 2014

Apr 23

Like HAL 9000, TABOR’s programming overrides will of voters

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We disagree.  TABOR is the will of the voters.

What do you expect from Carol Hedge’s party when they can’t tax, tax, and tax some more so they can spend, spend, spend until Daddy takes the T-Bird away…. TABOR only says you can’t raise taxes without the voters approving the tax.

OPINION

Like HAL 9000, TABOR’s programming overrides will of voters

By Carol Hedges
Guest Commentary

HAL 9000, the mellow-voiced but malevolent-minded computer from "2001: A Space Odyssey." (Thinkstock)

HAL 9000, the mellow-voiced but malevolent-minded computer from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” (Thinkstock)

The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR as most Coloradans know it, is frequently acclaimed as carrying out the will of voters. But as recent events show, it’s doing the opposite.

Would Colorado voters really have approved TABOR in 1992 if they had known it could prevent their communities from accepting state emergency funds after natural disasters like wildfires and floods? Would they have voted for TABOR if they’d known that it could unexpectedly cut taxes on marijuana that voters had overwhelmingly approved in two elections?

Rather than being a tool used to express the people’s will, TABOR works more like a computer with a mind of its own that carries out its preprogrammed mission automatically, oblivious to voters and to their elected officials.

We now have a new political structure – the HAL 9000 form of governance, modeled after the mellow-voiced but malevolent-minded computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Many Coloradans know TABOR mandates tax elections. But it does so much more. Continue reading →

Apr 03

Guest Commentary: Double Down and Defend TABOR

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Dustin ZvonekBy 

There’s good news and bad news for Coloradans as the annual state budget battle looms.

The good news, if you tend to focus on the revenue side of the ledger, is that the state is relatively flush with cash at the moment.

This helps explain the extra spring in the step one notices in legislators, lobbyists and special interests swarming the capitol, as they imagine all the wonderful things they can do with that windfall.

But this can also be bad news if you tend (as I do) to take the taxpayer’s point of view, since the resulting feeding frenzy could leave little thought to socking-away savings or returning a dividend to taxpayers as required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

You must remember TABOR, approved by voters back in the early 1990s? It’s been an invaluable ally to the state’s bill-payers ever since, which also makes it the bane of politicians and spending interests, who deeply resent the restraints it imposes on their ability to tax and spend at will.

Every budget season the debate stirs anew over whether TABOR has been good or bad for the state.  And this year that debate has taken on a new urgency for a number of reasons. Continue reading →