Category Archives: Editorial

Jan 21

Another clueless person who thinks we should keep on spending….

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Another clueless person who thinks we should keep on spending….

RC Lloyd: Time for repeal of TABOR
Posted: 01/19/2015

As one ventures out to spend the soon-to-arrive Colorado tax refund checks, be certain to thank tax crusader, current Colorado Springs resident and former California lawyer Doug Bruce for his success in passing the TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) amendment to the Colorado Constitution.
However, as your Michelins touch the ever-deteriorating roadways and you’re savoring that Starbuck’s latte, keep in mind how hamstrung state coffers are due to the lack of any rainy day protection written into this misguided piece of legislation. Time for a repeal.
RC Lloyd
Longmont

http://www.dailycamera.com/letters/ci_27353762/rc-lloyd-time-repeal-tabor

Jan 16

Hedges: The Colorado Conundrum

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Hedges: The Colorado Conundrum

Perhaps you’ve heard of the “Colorado Paradox,” the fact that our state is one of the most educated in the country – but mainly because educated people from elsewhere move here.

Have you, though, heard of the “Colorado Conundrum”?
This is a situation wherein Colorado, a state with one of the fastest-growing economies in the country and among the lowest unemployment rates, will still find itself unable to restore funding to K-12 education and colleges cut during the Great Recession or fix its crumbling roads. It’s a situation wherein state revenues will see a gangbusters resurgence, but the state will simply have to hand back the money to taxpayers rather than being able to give back to taxpayers the services they enjoyed before the recession.

In short, despite having plenty of water, we’ll be turning off the firehose while the house is still in flames.

Despite hosting one of the fastest-growing economies in the country and one of the lowest unemployment rates, Colorado, will find itself unable to restore funding to K-12 education and colleges cut during the Great Recession or fix its crumbling roads.

Continue reading →

Jan 15

Don’t punish taxpayers for prosperity

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CAPITOL REVIEW
Mark Hillman, 15 January 2015

Colorado’s economy has shown remarkable resiliency in the wake of the Great Recession.

Unemployment has steadily fallen from a high of 9.6% in 2010 to an estimated 4.1% in November 2014.

Income indicators roared past pre-recession levels and now both wages and salary and per capita income are significantly higher.

In the past five years, taxes and fees paid by Coloradans to their state government have grown by 43% from $8.5 billion to an estimated $12.3 billion in the current year.

And next year, state revenue could surpass the state’s spending limit for the first time in 15 years, triggering a modest rebate to taxpayers of $116 million or 0.4% of next year’s state budget.

But those in the Government Always Needs More Money Choir just can’t stand this prosperity. They are howling that that this modest refund – and perhaps future refunds, if the economy continues to grow – are somehow strangling our state government.

Remember, these rebates to taxpayers were approved by voters in the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) – the same law that requires a public vote on tax increases. Politicians and “the spending lobby” had resisted such limits for years.

Thirteen years after TABOR passed, voters approved Referendum C to correct the one obvious flaw in TABOR by allowing state government spending to rebound as the economy recovers from a recession. Continue reading →

Jan 11

TABOR may put roadblock in front of I-70 fix

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Editorials

By The Denver Post Editorial Board

Posted:   01/10/2015

A simulation of what the cap would like like over Interstate 70 through the Swansea neighborhood. (Photo courtesy of the Colorado Department of

A simulation of what the cap would like like over Interstate 70 through the Swansea neighborhood. (Photo courtesy of the Colorado Department of Transportation)

Thanks to constraints of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the funding for the reconstruction of Interstate 70 through north Denver has fallen apart, outgoing state transportation director Don Hunt told us the other day.

The state is expected to give back at least $137 million to Coloradans for fiscal year 2015-16 in the form of a TABOR rebate, and for complicated reasons that rebate will seriously impact transportation and capital construction funds.

It is further evidence that even in these heady economic times, TABOR is proving to have destructive impacts on basic government services.

To read the rest of this article, click the following link:
http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_27289664/tabor-may-put-roadblock-front-i-70-fix

 

Jan 09

Gregory Iwan: Another Tabor dividend

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This week’s abysmal pothole experience on U.S. 36 points up yet again why we must get rid of TABOR. The funny thing is, with more toll roads and toll lanes in our near future, even a Rolls Royce or Land Rover is not immune to extreme Third-World kinds of road hazards.

When will the moneyed gentry realize that they are in “it,” too, with the rest of us? Everyone’s fate is the same.

Repeal TABOR, before al Qaeda decides to adopt Colorado as a vacation home. They’d feel right at home, with our mountains and rotten roads. And guns everywhere. But that’s for another day.

Gregory Iwan

Longmont

http://www.dailycamera.com/letters/ci_27284871/gregory-iwan-another-tabor-dividend

 

 

Dec 25

EDITORIAL: Colorado tax ‘refunds’ will cost taxpayers dearly

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The insult to injury of the TABOR Amendment is back: Colorado must refund hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to state residents, despite the widespread public needs

BY THE AURORA SENTINEL

As hopeless as it might seem, Colorado must revisit the argument over its ludicrous state tax “refunds” that hurt the state and all of us much more than any individual actually benefits.

If you’re new to these parts, Colorado suffers under a unwieldy and complicated set of restrictive budget laws dubbed the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

The measure was a product of Colorado’s notorious anti-tax crusader Douglas Bruce and misguided state voters who approved the state constitutional amendment in 1992. As it was sold to voters, the measure capped state taxes by requiring that tax increases be approved by voters. But the convoluted and labyrinthine measure does so much more. It not only caps taxes, but it caps spending. Part of the amendment sets government services at a baseline, so that when budgets decrease in lean tax years, a new, lower baseline is set, creating the so-called, dreaded ratchet-down effect.

Continue reading →

Dec 25

TABOR rears its ugly head

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 City Sage

By

The state’s economy is booming, tax receipts are growing, and jobs are somewhat available, so the state government can begin to catch up with education, transportation and infrastructure funding … or can it?

Maybe not, because it’s TABOR time. When Colorado tax revenues increase too rapidly, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and its arcane provisions authored by Douglas Bruce kick in, forcing the state to refund “surplus” tax revenues or ask voters for permission to retain them.

The state constitutional amendment may have seemed simple, transparent and commonsensical to the voters who approved it in 1992, but it isn’t. Sold as a measure that took away the power to raise taxes from spendthrift elected officials, the measure was far more complex.

Bruce wrote every word of the lengthy amendment, explicitly designed to shrink, hobble and defund Colorado governments at every level.

TABOR limits government revenue increases to an annual figure determined by population growth plus inflation. That may sound reasonable, but Bruce’s simplistic formula doesn’t work. It has forced the state to make continual service cuts and defer infrastructure maintenance and construction, because the world Bruce envisioned bears little resemblance to the world we live in.

In the real world, tax revenues may vary sharply during any multi-year period. If revenues are flat for years before rebounding sharply, too bad! The revenue cap starts from zero every fiscal year. The 2005 passage of Referendum C mitigated TABOR’s effects for a few years, and the recession made it irrelevant for a few more. But now it’s back with a vengeance.

Continue reading →

Dec 08

TABOR must die for Colorado to survive

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Jeff Rice Journal-Advocate columnist

Editor: Another uninformed idiot who wants to raise taxes so you can pay more.
Jeff Rice Journal-Advocate columnist

I couldn’t help but notice that on this page last week CU economist Barry Poulson made numerous false claims about the “benefits” of TABOR refunds. That’s what conservatives do when the facts don’t support their doctrine. They … well, um, in the interest of not name-calling a fellow academic, I’ll just say that they tend to stretch the truth. A lot.

Poulson says that, if TABOR funds are returned to taxpayers in Colorado, you and I will enjoy between $50 and $100 refunds. Per year. And he says that will stimulate the state’s economy.

Fifty bucks? Seriously? Because I live in the real world, I personally know dozens of people who live at or below the federal poverty level, and to say that $50 a year would make a difference in their lives is an insult. They spend that on cigarettes every payday. That’s one tank of gas a year. A year!

Here’s the problem: Like most professional academics, Poulson doesn’t live in the same world you and I live in. His world is theoretical, and there are certain theories that are sacrosanct. Never mind that dribble-down economics (the poor are grateful for the crumbs of the rich) has been discredited in real life so often that even most conservatives have abandoned it. Poulson hangs onto it because (1) he’s paid to do that and (2) he hasn’t read a book on economics since 1997.

 

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Dec 06

Don’t condescend on TABOR refund, Democrats

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By The Denver Post Editorial Board

TABOR1 pictureDemocrats in the legislature are flirting with the idea of a ballot measure asking voters if the state can keep a likely refund dictated by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Good for them. The state needs the money to backfill both K-12 and higher education, and for transportation.

But Democrats might want to refine their pitch. According to incoming House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, “people would be far better off if we invested that in infrastructure, education — something that really benefited them rather than (them) getting their 50 bucks to spend on a tank of gas or something.”

Intentionally or not, her statement oozes the sort of condescension that voters detest.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.

http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_27061668/dont-condescend-tabor-refund-democrats

 

Nov 27

California’s experience makes economic, political benefits of Colorado’s TABOR clear

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Rapid growth in the Colorado economy will increase state revenue in excess of the TABOR limit. Colorado’s TABOR constitutional amendment limits the growth of state revenue to the sum of population growth plus inflation; surplus revenue above that limit must be refunded to taxpayers.

Legislative analysts estimate $137 million in TABOR refunds for the next fiscal year. In the following year the state must offset surplus revenue with a temporary income tax rate reduction estimated at $234 million. Given the range of error in these estimates, the average Colorado household should expect to get somewhere between $50 and $100 per year in TABOR refunds.

Continue reading →