Advance Colorado Executive Vice President Kristi Burton Brown gives a brief history and explanation of Colorado’s unique taxpayer protection: the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. This revenue cap limits the state government’s ability to spend taxpayer dollars and requires refunds to be sent to Coloradans when the government collects beyond the limit.
DENVER — A Democratic-led effort to challenge Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) will not advance before the legislative session ends Wednesday, despite the party’s complete control of state government.
State Rep. Sean Camacho, D-Denver, who sponsored a resolution to initiate a lawsuit seeking to have TABOR ruled unconstitutional, confirmed the measure will not receive a vote before midnight, ensuring the resolution will not have enough time to go through all the steps in the House and Senate by Wednesday.
“It is not happening,” Camacho said.
He did not know why it was not being put to a vote, and as of Monday night, a spokesman for House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillion, had not responded to an 12:35 p.m. text message regarding the vote.
TABOR, which has been state law since 1992, limits how much revenue Colorado can collect and spend each year. It also requires refunds to taxpayers when the state exceeds those limits. Democrats have increasingly cited TABOR as the reason behind this year’s $1 billion in state spending cuts.
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TABOR simply means voter consent.
TABOR is democracy.
Weakening TABOR is weakening democracy.
Every couple of years the spending lobby orchestrates an assault on our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. They are testing another onslaught likely for next year.
I was around for the fights to pass TABOR in the early 1990s. Then-Gov.Roy Romer famously declared if it passed, it will put a “going out of business” sign on the entrance to Colorado.
Oddly, our population has nearly doubled since then, and state spending has ballooned from just more than $6 billion to roughly $44 billion.
Read that headline again. Since TABOR, our population grew one-fold, state spending grew 7-fold. Predictable tax and spending policy helped create a boom.
The opposite of Romer’s scare is true. If we mess with our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, then we might as well put a “going out of business” sign on the entrance to Colorado.
Like telling tales of the boogeyman around the campfire to frighten children, those who feed on unconstrained spending want to scare the kids too. The young in this case are those who weren’t in Colorado before we demanded simple voter consent over our own money.
Get ready for a new batch of stories on how this Chupacabra of fiscal restraint is somehow making our lives worse, and the only way to slay the monster is to attack democracy and take away our right of consent. Continue reading
#HandsOffTABOR
#DontBeFooled
#ItsYourMoneyNotTheirs
#TABOR
#FollowTheLaw
#FeesAreTaxes
#VoteOnFees
#ReplaceThemAllForNotFollowingVotersWishes
We just wanted to remind you that the premise of this case was settled in December, 2021 but the political party on the left doesn’t learn. Here’s the headline and story:
Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich, writing for himself and six of his colleagues, concluded that the Boulder County Board of County Commissioners, a handful of school districts and one special district failed to show that the 1875 Enabling Act that guaranteed to Colorado a “republican” form of government had also given the local government entities the ability to challenge TABOR’s taxing and spending restrictions.
“Looking at the Enabling Act’s language, we conclude the plaintiffs cannot state a claim under the Act’s promise of a republican constitution. Neither the Enabling Act’s text nor structure supports the political subdivisions’ arguments. The clause promising a constitution republican in form has no clear beneficiary,” Tymkovich wrote in the Dec. 13 decision.
#HandsOffTABOR
#DontBeFooled
#ItsYourMoneyNotTheirs
#TABOR
#FeesAreTaxes
#FollowTheLaw
#VoteOnFees
#ReplaceThemAllForNotFollowingVotersWishes
By Rep. Ryan Gonzalez / March 21, 2025 / | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
In the state of Colorado, we are facing over a $1.2 BILLION dollar shortfall. As we are now halfway through the 2025 legislative session, we have seen little progress from the lawmaking majority on making hard and significant cuts to our budget.
Rather than admit the improper allocation of taxpayer dollars, the majority uses this predicament to go after and attack our Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR).
Our state budget this year is over 43 BILLION. In the last 6 years they have gone from a budget surplus to a very progressive spending spree at the expense of taxpayers.
More offices, tax credits, and programs that require funding and eat away at TABOR refunds have been – and continue to be – the norm for the majority rule in Colorado.
Much of this is due, in part, to the COVID ripple effect that we are seeing now, just years in the making. As a first term legislator, I can see – firsthand – many problems in how things are being managed and run under the Gold Dome.
We do not, and I cannot stress this enough, we do not have a revenue problem.
We have a spending problem, a big one.
To continue reading this story, please click (HERE) to go to the Rocky Mountain Voice:
January 19, 2025 By Nash Herman
Colorado legislators are discovering first-hand the impossibility of having their cake and eating it too.
The Joint Budget Committee continues to meet with dozens of departments to reconcile an approximately $750 million budget shortfall in 2025, with some absurdly claiming that deficit is purely a result of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) at work.
Granted, it does sounds bizarre that the state must make budget cuts in a year that it is still expected to collect a surplus of revenue beyond what is allowed by TABOR. But by looking at the facts, anyone can come to see how the so-called budget “crisis” is actually a self-inflicted wound from the legislature’s relentless over-spending.
Having their cake
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Colorado received a windfall of federal funds to prop up the state economy and boost recovery. To fund that massive stimulus, the federal government printed money, causing an increased supply of dollars chasing the same number of goods. This in turn lead to the dollar being worth less, also known as inflation. Continue reading
January 7, 2025 By Rep. Ryan Gonzalez
In 1992, Colorado voters passed the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, the nation’s strongest tax limitation law to this day. For those who are unfamiliar what TABOR really does, this amendment to the Colorado Constitution allows government spending to reasonably increase using a formula of population growth plus inflation. Excess revenue, known as the “TABOR surplus,” must be refunded to taxpayers. If state government wants to keep the surplus, or raise taxes, voters must approve. That is exactly why progressives abhor TABOR. But the truth is, a little north of 60% of Colorado voters approve of TABOR.
Many progressives have made their disdain for TABOR be known, having tried time and time again to chip away at TABOR’s taxpayer protections. And in many ways, they’ve done so; mostly by adding tax credits which pull from the TABOR surplus. They’ve done so by giving everyone equal tax refunds and redistributing wealth; taking from those who paid the most in state taxes and giving more to those who paid little.
In 2022, the Democrat majority, just before a critical midterm election, gave taxpayers what they called the “Colorado cash back” in disguise as a “stimulus” check. What they didn’t tell you is that it was actually your TABOR refund, just early and proportioned against historical distribution. Continue reading
