Category Archives: Editorial

Mar 05

Republican leader: TABOR issue rides on who should decide

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Rep. Brian DelGrosso. R-Loveland

Rep. Brian DelGrosso,
R-Loveland

House Republican leader Brian DelGrosso of Loveland said it’s time for “honest fiscal policy” and not TABOR accounting gimmicks to pay for Colorado’s roads and bridges.

DelGrosso has penned an editorial laying out his — and presumably the Republican caucus’ — position on a Democratic plan to reclassify the state’s hospital provider fee to get it out from under a revenue cap voters approved in 1992 when they added the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to the state constitution.

The move also would negate state refunds worth between about $37 up to $111 per taxpayer next year.

“Taking more money from taxpayers without their consent will not solve our challenges,” DelGrosso writes. “We have the money and our budget is growing, but using some budget maneuver is definitely no substitute for honest fiscal policy.”

 

To read the rest of this story, click (HERE):

Mar 03

TABOR has marvelous ideas

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TABOR has marvelous ideas

Once again, TABOR is under assault by those who only see taxpayers as an unlimited ATM (Gazette, Feb. 28, Section A, Local & State, “Town hall on budget mess cast blame on TABOR”).

Quoting from the article, “TABOR caps government revenue collections based on inflation and population growth, sets state’s tax structure and restricts government spending.” What a marvelous idea! Michael Merrifield (D, House District 18) laments that legislators “get permission from the voters to raise taxes.” Another marvelous idea.

The federal government under the current administration has expanded the U.S. debt to $17 trillion or about $50,000 per person. Considering that 47 percent of the population pays no federal taxes, we taxpayers are on the hook for much more. TABOR has kept the Colorado legislators from going on perpetual spending sprees and concomitant tax increases.

We also need TABOR legislation for the U.S. Congress.

Denny Modlin

Colorado Springs

http://gazette.com/letters-teflon-label-has-been-…/…/1571257

Mar 02

Blake: Funding transportation needs adds fuel to the fire

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Blake: Funding transportation needs adds fuel to the fire

March 1, 2016 4:50 PM· By Peter Blake

File photo: Todd Shepherd

File photo: Todd Shepherd

If you are looking for an opportunity to pay higher taxes, this is your year.

Already on Colorado’s 2016 ballot is a single-payer health plan that would boost the state income tax rate to 14.63 percent, highest in the nation.

On its heels comes a planned initiative sponsored by the Colorado Contractors Association, which wants more money to build roads and mass transit projects.

Not by increasing the state gasoline tax, now 22 cents a gallon, but by increasing the state sales tax, now 2.9 percent, by up to three-quarters of a cent.

The final figure has yet to be determined, said Bill Ray, spokesman for the planned initiative. The organizers have until March 25 to propose their final ballot language.

They are working backwards from a goal of raising $500 million to $600 million more per year, which under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) has to be listed on the ballot question. They will consider the state’s current revenue stream and then figure out how much higher the tax rate must be to raise the money.

If taxes are a must, user-pay levies are generally considered the fairest. Those who drive their cars over the roads pay their taxes at the pump. Those who don’t drive don’t have to pay.

But earlier polling by the CCA determined that an increase in the gasoline tax would be “roundly rebuffed” by voters, said Ray.

Continue reading →

Jan 21

Johnson: Conservatives, beware of Building a Better Colorado’s spending agenda

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Johnson: Conservatives, beware of Building a Better Colorado’s spending agenda

by on January 20, 2016
Donald E.L. Johnson

Donald E.L. Johnson

Colorado conservatives who want to control spending and taxes in the state should keep a close eye on the bipartisan Building a Better Colorado.

Its mission is pretty clear to anyone who has attended one of its some 20 “summits” that have been held around the state and has read its handouts and website.

Building a Better Colorado is intent on making it easier for politicians to increase spending and raise taxes. That is, it wants to repeal TABOR), which has helped keep spending in check in Colorado since it was passed in the early 1990s.

Further, BABC wants to make it harder to amend the state constitution by requiring a “super majority” of somewhere between a 50 percent to 66 percent majority to amend the constitution. Today, it is as easy to amend the constitution as it is to pass a referendum that creates a new law or set of laws that can be changed by the General Assembly.

 

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Jan 20

Roberts: Colorado can’t balance its budget by ignoring its constitution

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“My legislative duty includes necessarily upholding constitutional requirements.” – Senator Ellen Roberts

We’re past the ceremonial days of the 2016 legislature and the only tasks we must complete in a session, based on the state’s constitution, are to pass the budget and the school finance act. Although a short list, these two pieces of legislation require months of noodling, number-crunching and negotiations. This year will be no exception. The budget touches every essential — and many nonessential — governmental services, and will be the biggest challenge we face over the next 120 days.

In their opening speeches, Gov. John Hickenlooper and House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, both Democrats, already assigned blame to the Republicans for budget battles brewing on the horizon, saying there’s only one path to reconciling the mess and that’s with their workaround on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Their speeches highlighted the word “compromise,” but in a way that suggested perhaps neither has read the book Getting to Yes. There’s an art to compromise, including listening and incorporating the input of others, something sorely missing here.

It’s important to note that the top 2016 challenge in all U.S. state legislatures is balancing their budgets. Unlike Colorado, more than a dozen states failed to meet their 2015 deadlines to balance their budget. So, while the spending limitations of TABOR and other constitutional requirements are hard to reconcile, it’s not TABOR causing the big squeeze, but, as experienced across the country, the very long lists of state spending that are exceeding available revenue. Continue reading →

Jan 20

Guest Commentary: An unlawful swipe at TABOR on hospital provider “enterprise”

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By Penn Pfiffner
Penn Pfiffner is a former Colorado legislator. He is chairman of the TABOR Committee.

Here’s a bad idea: hide a state government function off-budget and sock citizens with a big tax increase in the doing.

That’s what the Hickenlooper administration wants to do with its proposal to redefine the state’s hospital provider charge as an “enterprise.”

Colorado’s tax system is set up so that in a good economy, taxes are collected at a pace faster than growth in population and inflation. When government over-collects taxes, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) forces it to return the surplus to taxpayers.

Click (HERE) to read the rest of this story

 

 

 

Jan 12

Douglas Bruce’s response to “School superintendents join forces in funding rally at Colorado Capitol “

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To Gazette reporter Debbie Kelley,

I read today’s propaganda piece for the government school Establishment’s demonstration at the Capitol. You should charge them a commission for being their loyal press agent.

Why don’t you report–

1) the actual salaries of the superintendents bleating for more money?

2) less than half of all government school employees are teachers?

3) the TOTAL spending per student in Colorado (TOTAL spending, including debt payments, buses, meals, sports, etc. divided by total average daily enrollment of full time students)?

4) they promised voters in 2000 Amendment 23 would solve their alleged problem? Continue reading →

Jan 11

Questions about Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and Colorado enterprise funds

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Questions about Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and Colorado enterprise funds (2 letters)

 By
Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman watches as attendance is taken during a session of the legislature at the state Capitol on May 6, 2015. (Brent Lewis, Denver Post file)

Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman watches as attendance is taken during a session of the legislature at the state Capitol on May 6, 2015. (Brent Lewis, Denver Post file)

Re: “Legal memo complicates Hickenlooper’s hospital provider fee effort,” Jan. 7 news story; and “Yet more trouble for state budget,” Jan. 8 editorial.

The hair-splitting continues between the branches of state government regarding the definition of an enterprise for the purposes of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The discussion is way down in the weeds, with one side focusing on what theoretically constitutes an enterprise and the other on the crippling result of applying the TABOR status quo.

In fiscal year 1993, the year after TABOR was passed, state enterprise fund revenues were approximately 4.5 percent of total state revenues. By fiscal year 2014, conversions had grown that to about 28.4 percent. While passing the legal test, many of the current enterprises fail the man-on-the-street “smell test.”

 

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Jan 11

Douglas Bruce’s Response to Mike Foote’s Editorial

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douglas bruceThe Colorado TABOR Foundation received the following response from Douglas Bruce regarding Mike Foote’s editorial:
 
In the Camera, a local politician calls the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) “A 24-year-old constitutional amendment championed by a discredited anti-government crusader and convicted tax evader…” My 2005 “offense” was giving my entire county commissioner salary to charity. I was denied time to get an attorney, a local jury trial, the right to subpoena witnesses, and many other “rights” we thought we had. The IRS audited me and said the tax deduction was lawful and I was innocent, but their testimony was not allowed. The state case awaits a federal court hearing.
 
Mike Foote uses that frame-up to urge you to vote away your right to vote on taxes–a
classic personal attack. Now you know why the case was filed.
 
TABOR cuts nothing–never has, never will. TABOR applies only to 60% of state revenue. The spending growth limit applies only to excess revenue above an automatic growth rate that provides the state hundreds of millions in new revenue yearly. We can let the state keep all revenue, as in the pot tax refund vote last November.

Continue reading →