Category Archives: Education

Jan 30

How will Colorado pay for better roads if taxpayers don’t want to pay for better roads?

Posted on by

Let us decipher Matt Gray’s comments (…”we need new revenue to go along with it.”)
 with our 6-word analysis:

“We’re going to raise your taxes”

#TABOR
#ItsYourMoneyNotTheirs
#ThankGodForTABOR
#FixTheDamnRoads
#CoLeg 

How will Colorado pay for better roads if taxpayers don’t want to pay for better roads?

Colorado drivers demand better roads and less traffic. Colorado taxpayers won’t pay for better roads and less traffic.
Author: Marshall Zelinger
Published: 10:50 PM MST January 29, 2020

DENVER — Colorado drivers love complaining about traffic and bad roads.

Don’t believe us? Ask one.

Colorado voters love saying no to giving up more of their money to fix traffic and roads.

Don’t believe us? Look at the state’s history on ballot issues for roads.

Republican lawmakers want to continue using general fund money — the money that the state already collects and spends.

“This building keeps saying to the people of Colorado, ‘give us more money,’ and the people of Colorado are saying, ‘show me you’re going to spend the money we’re already given you on the things we care about, like roads and bridges,'” said Sen. Paul Lundeen, R-Monument.

Lundeen proposed a bill that would have brought back an old Colorado law that used existing money the state already collected.

To continue reading this story, please click (HERE):

Jan 29

GUEST COLUMN: No more kicking the can down the (potholed) road

Posted on by
“Then, when the money dries up, taxpayers are asked to raise taxes again. This happened just this last November, when Democrats tried to push Proposition CC as the solution to transportation funding.” – Sen Lundeen & Rep Carver
    • Paul Lundeen and Terri Carver

 

For years — decades even — Coloradans have called upon the General Assembly to prioritize Colorado’s outdated transportation infrastructure. Our elected officials have for so long kicked this proverbial can down the (potholed) road that the Colorado Department of Transportation now has a backlog of anywhere from $7 billion to $9 billion in projects. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly a fourth of Colorado’s entire budget this year.

We hear it all the time — where are the taxes we already pay going?

The truth is that the legislature has been using your tax dollars as a piggy bank for pet projects instead of utilizing them to fill potholes and add new highway lanes. Pet projects such as Senate Bill 19-173, a $800,000 study on the feasibility of the state government getting involved in your retirement savings, the creation of an “Office of Just Transition” that has been covered extensively in the press, and $6 million for unnecessary census outreach that wasn’t required by the federal government. These have all been priorities of legislative Democrats — not transportation.

Jan 28

How will legislative Democrats pay for their agenda?

Posted on by

DENVER–Governor Polis and the majority Democrats have an ambitious agenda this legislative session. Question is, how will they pay for it all?  With the failure of Proposition CC in November, those who were hanging their hats on voters giving up future tax refunds, allowing the state to keep and spend overcollected tax revenue, will need to find new pots of money.  Indeed, not only did Coloradans vote to keep the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue limit in place, that limit has been hit and the state income tax rate is actually ratcheting down for the year.

Republican strategist Roger Hudson and Democrat strategist Miller Hudson recently sat down with Complete Colorado editor-in-Chief Mike Krause on the public affairs TV show Devil’s Advocate (airs Friday nights at 8:30 on Colorado Public Television, channel 12) to talk about where Democrats might turn to bring in new revenues. Both agree that one option is more more fee-funded government-run enterprises, which operate outside the TABOR budget cap. Check out the video below to find out more.

VIDEO: How will legislative Democrats pay for their agenda?

Jan 23

Income tax rate reduction bill killed by Senate Democrats

Posted on by

Income tax rate reduction bill killed by Senate Democrats

(Photo illustration by Tinnakorn Jorruang, iStock)

Gov. Jared Polis, in his state of the state address on Jan. 9, continued to voice support for the concept of an income tax rate reduction, but it isn’t going over well with Democrats in the state legislature.

And they showed that on Wednesday, when Democrats on the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee put to an end Senate Bill 20, voting it down on a 3-2 party-line vote.

The measure is the second attempt in the past two years from Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling.

Sonnenberg’s bill would reduce the state’s individual and corporate income tax rate from 4.63% to 4.49%. The bill’s fiscal analysis said it would cost the state $143.8 million in lost tax revenue in 2019-20 and $294.6 million the following year.

And because of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), that reduction would be permanent unless voters decided to allow the state to increase income tax rates through a ballot measure.

To continue reading this story, please click (HERE):

Jan 16

Colorado progressives have a new target in their pursuit of a tax overhaul: the rich. Here’s why:

Posted on by

A host of proposed ballot measures for 2020 and proposals at the state Capitol are putting Colorado’s uneven tax system in the spotlight

The Colorado tax code, it pays to be rich and it’s expensive to be poor.

For decades now, that’s been the stark takeaway buried inside the 286-page report on Colorado’s tax system the state Department of Revenue releases every two years: The less you make, the more you spend on taxes, as a percentage of your income.

But despite growing public frustration over income inequality and the state’s rising cost of living, the tax disparities apparent in Colorado’s law have drawn little political attention.

That is, until now. After years of defeats at the ballot box, progressive advocates believe they’ve landed on a tax plan that can resonate with Colorado voters: making the rich pick up more of the bill.

The Colorado Fiscal Institute in December introduced 35 possible ballot proposals that would advance the idea and ask voters to re-establish a graduated income tax in the state for the first time in more than 30 years. Structured like the federal income tax, graduated or progressive state tax brackets would levy higher tax rates based on how much money residents make.

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

Jan 02

SLOAN | To tone-deaf tax hikers, ‘no’ translates to try, try again

Posted on by

This year’s defeat of Proposition CC was a bitter experience for the state’s Democrats and liberal groups, but apparently not a didactic one, at least for the latter. Proposals are already in the works for some new iterations of the ubiquitous tax-increase ballot measures which crop up every second election or so, just to see if perseverance will ultimately win out over fiscal literacy.

Most of the proposals are conjured up by groups like the leftist Colorado Fiscal Institute, which houses some presumably very bright people whose economic analysis nevertheless boils down invariably to tugging on the General Assembly’s sleeve and pointing at someone else’s wallet.

Carol Hedges, executive director of CFI, said in an interview in some other publication that “what I took away from Prop. CC was that was not the solution.” Clearly. She goes on to say “that solution didn’t address the concerns of folks who voted in the election, and we have an obligation to solve those problems.”

What problems are those, exactly?

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

Dec 26

Group restarts tax fight, files 35 ideas for Colorado ballot

Posted on by
Ballot proposals would move the state back toward a graduated tax
By Brian Eason The Colorado Sun

Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2019 12:25 PM
Lawmakers meet in the Colorado House of Representatives on May 1.

Jesse Paul/The Colorado Sun

Dec 26

Slower economic growth, higher TABOR refunds projected in government forecasts

Posted on by
FILE - Colorado State Capitol
Clouds build over the state Capitol in downtown Denver.

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

Two forecasts for Colorado’s economy cite continued growth in the state, but noted a tight labor market would cause that growth to be muted in the coming years.

The state legislature’s Joint Budget Committee has received forecasts from the Legislative Council Staff and the Office of State Planning and Budget.

The forecasts estimate that taxpayers will see refunds granted by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), as the state collects revenue above the state spending cap.

In a statement, House Democrats said the spending caps “limit the state’s ability to invest in critical priorities, such as education and transportation.”

The Legislative Council staff forecast said the state can expect to see economic activity expand as job growth and rising wages continue.

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