Category Archives: Colorado Legislature

Mar 11

Opinion: TABOR has united Coloradans

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Opinion: TABOR has united Coloradans

PUBLISHED ON MAR 10, 2019 5:00AM MDT

Michael Fields@MichaelCLFields

Special to The Colorado Sun

In a growing partisan culture, there’s still something Coloradans ranging the political spectrum can agree on: the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).

In recent public polling, when given the simple, unbiased definition, 71 percent of registered voters in Colorado support TABOR, while only 28 percent oppose the law.

What’s the secret to this overwhelming popularity? First, Coloradans love being able to vote on tax increases. It’s simple: the government has to make the case to voters in order to get more of their hard-earned money.

Michael Fields

Second, TABOR provides guardrails for the size of government. The state budget still grows every year, but the growth is limited. TABOR keeps the government truly serving the people.

Over the past several years, voters have sent a message to state lawmakers by voting down the last six statewide tax increases on the ballot — most by huge margins.

But this hasn’t stopped lawmakers and progressive special interest groups from developing workarounds in the form of fees, enterprises, and lawsuits to allow the state to spend more taxpayer money. Continue reading →

Mar 10

Democrats won’t leave TABOR alone

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Democrats won’t leave TABOR alone

Posted on  by Citizen Press Staff

Are you tired of voting at the polls to keep Democrats from taking your hard earned money?

Well, you may have to do it again with Democrats wanting to take another swing at TABOR.

According to the Colorado Sun, Democrat lawmakers want voters to permanently set aside spending caps in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

House Speaker KC Becker, from Boulder, is drafting the measure. Becker at a town hall meeting pleaded, “I’m asking voters ‘Can you let the state keep the revenue we are already collecting?’”

Translation: We’re entitled to keep more of the money we are stealing from you.

The measure would allow the state to keep as much as $960 million in your tax dollars through June 2020.

What don’t these Democrats understand?

Continue reading →

Mar 08

Colorado hospital fees do not violate TABOR, Denver District Court rules (updated)

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Colorado hospital fees do not violate TABOR, Denver District Court rules

The fees have generated more than $4.6 billion over the past decade, according to the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

By KIERAN NICHOLSON | knicholson@denverpost.com | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED:  | UPDATED: 

Hospital fees that have generated billions of dollars in Colorado are legal and do not violate Colorado’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights, according to a Denver District Court ruling.

The Wednesday ruling found that the Hospital Provider Fee and the subsequent Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Fee are “fees, and not taxes, and therefore are not subject to TABOR,” according to a Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) news release.

The ruling is in favor of the health care policy department and the Colorado Department of the Treasury.

In 2015, the TABOR Foundation filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the fees. The hospital provider fee is a charge imposed on hospital stays that other states refer to as a “bed tax.”

Continue reading →

Mar 07

Democratic lawmakers want to ask voters in 2019 to end TABOR cap, but Polis is not so sure

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Democratic lawmakers want to ask voters in 2019 to end TABOR cap, but Polis is not so sure

The measure would amount to the most substantial effort in years to rollback the state’s unique limits on government spending

The Colorado Sun — johnfrank@coloradosun.com

Top Democratic lawmakers want to ask Colorado voters this November to permanently set aside the spending cap in the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

House Speaker KC Becker is drafting a measure to put a question on the 2019 ballot that would allow the state to keep as much as $960 million in projected revenues through June 2020 — money that otherwise would get refunded to taxpayers. The proposal would split the dollars evenly between K-12 education, higher education and transportation.

But now Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is not sure it’s the right strategy — or that it can pass.

“Going to the ballot in 2019 is possible, but it’s premature to say that it is the right strategy at this time,” Polis spokeswoman Laurie Cipriano told The Colorado Sun on Wednesday. “The governor wants to ensure that if he supports a ballot initiative that it’s set up for success.”

The dispute only further complicates the party’s effort to rollback TABOR, the state’s unique constitutional restriction on spending that is one of most volatile issues in Colorado politics. And it once again pits the governor against lawmakers in his own party early in his term.

Continue reading →

Mar 04

Will Democratic Primary Voters Tolerate a Liberal? A former Colorado governor will test whether the Sandernistas have taken over the party.

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Will Democratic Primary Voters Tolerate a Liberal?

A former Colorado governor will test whether the Sandernistas have taken over the party.

By James Freeman

March 4, 2019 4:55 p.m. ET


Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper at a campaign house party in Manchester, N.H. last month. PHOTO: ELISE AMENDOLA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is claiming a socialist victory in the battle of ideas. Meanwhile former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is running for President and testing whether economic non-extremists can still win Democratic presidential primaries.

Sunday in Chicago, Mr. Sanders implied that people no longer view him as a Marxist kook. The Chicago Tribune reports on a Sanders speech at Navy Pier:

“Three years ago, they thought we were kind of crazy and extreme, not the case anymore,” he said. “We are not only going to defeat (President Donald) Trump, we are going to transform the United States of America.”

 

Mr. Sanders has certainly made extremism cool among Democratic presidential candidates. All of his fellow senators seeking the party’s nomination have joined him in co-sponsoring the Green New Deal and its promise of government health care and the end of traditional energy sources. They have also voted for an abortion policy so expansive that it allows adults to decide the fate of children even when they are no longer in the womb. Continue reading →

Feb 20

THAT’S… A SUPERMAJORITY: 71 Percent of Coloradans Support TABOR

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THAT’S… A SUPERMAJORITY: 71 Percent of Coloradans Support TABOR

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Well ain’t this something?

A new poll was released indicating overwhelming support of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which most Coloradans lovingly refer to as TABOR. Fully 71 percent of the 500 Coloradans surveyed expressed support for the policy, and lest you think these numbers are skewed, the breakdown of who was asked is… rather reflective of an actual election in Colorado: 37 percent of respondents were either unaffiliated or members of a third party, 32 percent were Democrats, and 31 percent were Republicans.

TABOR, for those uninitiated into wonky public policy, can be defined simply and as follows:

TABOR, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, is an amendment to the state constitution passed in 1992 which requires state and local government to seek voter approval in order to raise taxes and also limits growth in state spending to population growth plus inflation. If the state collects more revenues than it is allowed to spend, then it must return the surplus to the taxpayers.

To put it another way, TABOR allows the people of Colorado to decide amongst themselves on tax increases. It’s one of the most publicly-empowering policies in the entire country, and, yeah, it’s pretty freakin’ popular in our beloved state.

Remember this when Democrats at the State Capitol introduce legislation that either puts a dent in, or otherwise seeks to circumvent TABOR. Every time they do it (and trust us, they do it), Democrat lawmakers are implicitly telling us that we’re not smart enough to determine our own state’s financial future.

For our part, we trust your gut on TABOR. And you’ll be happy to know that you’ve got a lot more friends than foes.

THAT’S… A SUPERMAJORITY: 71 Percent of Coloradans Support TABOR

Feb 18

TABOR needs your help!

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Both The TABOR Foundation and TABOR Committee have received huge numbers of requests for assistance and participation.
Your Colorado TABOR team is overwhelmed!
We need your help!
Would you be willing to assist us?

You can make a big difference by volunteering your skills and activism.
Contact us and let’s talk.
Either email TheTABORFoundation@gmail.com or call Penn at his office (303-233-7731).

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Your TABOR Foundation and TABOR Committee team

 

 

 

Read below to see if you can provide any help!

  •  Podcasts

Be a media producer!  The TABOR Foundation’s mission includes outreach to people who have not heard about the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and to supporters who want more intellectual ammunition to talk about TABOR.  At one point, we had the facility, the interview talent and eight guests scheduled.  A technical barrier to posting our podcasts then took some time to overcome.  We would like to proceed, but now, for want of leadership and management, we have been unable to move forward.  Please help us solve that problem and continue the program.

Requirements:  We seek a volunteer who in 2019 will donate about 40 hours between now and early November.  The time demands most likely would be in “spurts,” that is, six different projects in which about six hours of your time would be needed over the course of about three weeks, with breaks in between during which little or no time would be asked.  The individual we seek has to be well organized and able to gently but persistently move other volunteers to act.  You would get to know the people who supply both the taping equipment and the interview skills.  For each podcast, you would coordinate the schedule to bring together the person to be interviewed, the taping technician and the interviewer.  You would obtain in advance from the Foundation the questions that should guide the interview.  You would attend the interview and address any problems.  You would work with others or on your own to edit the podcasts for content and flow, with the help of the taping technician.  You would coordinate with the web master to post the completed podcast.  You would solicit other advocacy groups to link to the podcast and notify other media of its availability.  Throughout the year you would report to, and keep apprised, the Foundation’s Executive Director.

  • Speakers Bureau – Communications

The TABOR Foundation needs to replace an activist who has excellent skills in defining the TABOR outreach message but must relinquish that role.  She also has been organizing the resources necessary for successful presentations.

Requirements:  A volunteer who in 2019 will donate an average of one to two hours a week to manage the Speakers Bureau and continue to weigh political developments and reactions to keep the speakers group prepared.  There is also a need to organize one-time training sessions to improve the preparation of speakers.  One training session would be for TABOR content, delivered by an experienced TABOR speaker.  A second session would be to hone the speakers’ presentation skills, to be led by a professional trainer.  Time would also have to be given to ensure consistent promotion is ongoing.

  • Speakers Bureau – Outreach

There are more speakers ready to make more TABOR 101 presentations than we have venues to deliver the message.  One person has been active in soliciting invitations, but needs assistance.  The TABOR Foundation needs another person to call political clubs and civic clubs along the Front Range, and perhaps eventually to expand into other areas of the state.  The objective would be to generate four invitations per month, which then would have to match the invitation with an available speaker and communicate the key logistical information and coordinate use of the PowerPoint equipment.  The individual doing this work needs to be a self-starter with a commitment to keep after the goals, in what often proves to be a frustrating and drawn-out effort to identify program directors, ensure that duplicative calls are not going out in conflict with the other caller, and the need to recruit the best person to speak from our portfolio of volunteers.

  • Monitor Family Leave Bill

Rumor has the TABOR Committee expecting that a new 1% payroll tax will be called something else by the legislature, so no voter approval will be allowed.  Learn how to track the introduction of new bills throughout the session (or exercise your knowledge if already familiar).  Once introduced, notify the Committee and keep us apprised of the progress of the legislation – when people can testify, revisions to the fiscal note, and so on.  Very likely there will be additional collaboration / coordination with other groups concerned about the bill.  A wild guess is that tracking will take 15 minutes a day until the bill dies, is passed, or session ends in May.  Additional communication may take one or two dozen hours.  A related task would be to generate guest columns in several major newspapers, a task that could double the time you contribute.