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.
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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
December 20, 2024 By Nash Herman
The University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business recently released their 60th annual Business Outlook for 2025, and, despite a moderate outlook in 2025, the report includes some disturbing trends in the Colorado economy. Let’s take a look at some of what’s going wrong.
Troubling trends
As pointed out by Denver Post business writer Aldo Svaldi, Colorado was the fifth fastest growing economy in the country in the last 15 years, but was 41st this year.
In terms of personal income growth, Colorado moved from third to 39th.
Although Colorado only moved down from sixth to 15th for employment growth, it comes with the caveat that the job gains this year were skewed toward government, education and healthcare, and leisure and hospitality.
Conversely, the growth of the high-paying professional and business services industry has continued a downward trend since 2022.
Fueled by slowing migration to Colorado and an aging population, Colorado’s labor force growth ranking also moved from sixth to 29th.
Taxes, spending and regulation
Obviously, some of the problems with Colorado’s economy are externally caused, like the lingering effects of the pandemic and subsequent inflation from federal spending.
However, I think there is still more to be said as to why Colorado’s economy seems to be stuttering now.
Colorado’s shift toward bigger government and away from the free market is why these problems are beginning to manifest. Over-regulation, over-spending, and over-taxation are the key culprits. To Coloradans who have witnessed the economy’s decline, the most noticeable difference between today and twenty years ago is that the state now more closely resembles California more than the entrepreneurial Colorado of old. Continue reading
Since 2018, Colorado taxpayers have benefited from two reductions to the state income tax that together have brought the rate from 4.63% to 4.4%, for an aggregate reduction of 0.23%. These reductions have been much heralded by state government leaders and have elicited approving comments from a wide range of observers.
The applause for these tax cuts, however, has obscured a separate tactic that state leaders increasingly have used to extract revenue from Coloradans in amounts that dwarf the income tax reductions. During the last two decades, Coloradans have seen a steady increase in the fees paid to a wide range of state enterprises. The pattern has accelerated dramatically since 2018.
According to a recent Common Sense Institute study, fee-based revenue to enterprises has increased since 2018 by an amount equivalent to a 0.51% increase in the state income tax — so, more than double the recent tax cuts. If Colorado’s fee enterprises, minus higher education, were instead funded by the state income tax, the state income tax would increase to 7.68%, a 75% increase over the current rate of 4.4%.
In 1992 voters enacted the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to constrain the growth of government by requiring voter approval for tax increases. Since then, the state government has built a new structure to avoid that requirement.
The creation of TABOR-exempt state-owned “enterprises” has allowed government to increase fees from 46% of total state spending in 1996 to 71% of state spending in 2023 without requiring approval from taxpayers, according to a new report released by the Common Sense Institute, a non-partisan research organization “dedicated to the protection and promotion of Colorado’s economy.”
“Fees are a rapidly growing and significant cost for Coloradans,” said Kelly Caufield, Executive Director of the Common Sense Institute. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if we call it a tax or a fee, these costs are driving the cost of living in our state.”
If you have seen headlines on this problem, you may or may not have noted a discrepancy in the dollar amounts. Some articles say $67 million, some say $34. Both are right, but the semantics are important. The total owed is $67 million: $33 million for this year and $34 million for the past couple years of overpayments. If I return to my analogy from before, you could liken the $34 million to the $240 you’d owe your employer, the $33 million to the $20 loss on your current check, and the loss of that $20 per month in the future to the problem the state has in trying to figure out how to fund the enterprise fully going forward.
A newly proposed 200 percent hike in alcohol taxes from Sens. Kevin Priola (D-13th District) and Chris Hansen (D-31st District) has been met with strong opposition from Colorado Voters.
In a newly published survey by Nelson Research, the proposal, SB 24-181, “loses support among all major
demographic subgroups as more information is known about the funding mechanism and impacts on
economy, democratic process, small business/consumers, and overall lack of prioritization of current alcohol tax dollars.” Starting with a 2-to-1 general disapproval of alcohol taxes (48.9% opposed vs. 23.3% approve), the measure only fares worse once voters learn how the bill was structured to get around Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) provisions as well as its effect on Colorado’s economy. Its final disapproval rating is 58% with just 26% in favor.
In addition to the provision itself, voters also rejected the plan to label this tax as a “fee” by 61-21 percent.
This poll is clear and overwhelming evidence that Coloradans reject higher alcohol taxes. We hope that the bill sponsors listen to their constituents.
The survey was conducted from March 25 – March 27, 2024. The survey consisted of 538 registered voters in Colorado. The sample size (n=538) is sufficient to assess voter sentiment within a margin-of-error of +/- 4.2% at a 95% confidence level.
Further polling insights include:
? Opposition to a 200% tax increase: Results when told the bill raises the tax on beer, wine and liquor by
200% – or three times the current tax level. 22.1% In Favor & 66.0% Opposed
? Economic impact: Results when told Senate Bill 24-181 would hurt Colorado’s vibrant tourism
economy as it would cost local restaurants, brew pubs and craft breweries over $25 million in lost retail
sales. 16.6% In Favor & 70.4% Opposed
? Current tax allocation: Results when told the state already collects millions of dollars in alcohol tax
payments, but does not prioritize treatment and recovery services. Respondents were asked if legislators
should prioritize the way they currently spend their alcohol tax dollars instead of requiring more taxes.
65.0% Agree or in favor & 40.7% Opposed
Colorado Voter Survey Reveals Major Disapproval to Proposed Alcohol Tax
