Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) and the leaders of the Colorado Legislature are progressives from Boulder who have many ideas for higher taxes and new spending. Much to their chagrin, Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights thwarts their plans to raise state tax rates and spending levels.
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They lied to us in 2005, and they are doubling down on this lie in 2019. Colorado voters were sold a bill of goods with Referendum C in 2005, and it is of the utmost importance that we aren’t fooled again with Proposition CC in 2019.
Proponents of Referendum C originally claimed that their measure was “temporary.” The measure was supposed to offer a five-year reprieve from the constitutional limitations created by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), allowing some fiscal flexibility for Colorado lawmakers to invest heavily in education and transportation.
Or so they claimed.
The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is under attack. For at least a decade, Democrats in the Colorado legislature — backed by the Colorado Supreme Court in erroneous rulings and occasionally supported by faithless Republicans — have thwarted some of the protections afforded to Coloradans by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Typically, these successful assaults against TABOR have come from taxes disguised as “fees.” In fact, this past legislative session Democrats even proposed financing a paid family leave program with a payroll tax (like the Social Security tax) that they would again have labeled a “fee.” (This legislation is likely to return next session.)
But this year’s attack — Proposition CC, put on the ballot by the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and backed by Gov. Jared Polis (D) — is particularly troublesome. Recall that the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights was passed in 1992 and provides two essential protections for Coloradans. First, the amendment requires a vote of the people to raise taxes (unless legislators call it a “fee,” as discussed).
Ex-Basalt mayor touts new ‘social capital’ group
Tim Belinski, developer of Willits Town Center, supports Rick Stevens’ idea of starting a social capital group in Basalt.
Madeleine Osberger/Aspen Daily News
A potentially positive proposal to salve some of the wounds caused by the contentious and increasingly expensive TABOR controversy in Basalt may end up butting heads with the same town government that had been inadvertently collecting property tax revenues for 10 years in violation of the state’s constitution.
All told, town officials estimate that about $2 million had been collected illegally, according to the fine print of TABOR — the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights — which was added to the state constitution by citizens’ referendum in 1992.
TABOR restricts revenues for all levels of government — state, local, special districts and schools. Under TABOR, state and local governments cannot raise tax rates without voter approval.
Two years after TABOR was enacted, Basalt voters approved a property tax rate of 6.151 mills. Soon thereafter, given the increase of real estate values in town, that rate was lowered, finally bottoming out at 2.56 mills in 2010. As real estate values struggled to recover from the Great Recession, Basalt was forced to gradually raise the mill levy to meet its basic operating costs.
Colorado has awarded $7.6 million in Enterprise Zone tax credits to Comanche Solar PV in Pueblo County. The 156-megawatt Comanche solar array, shown here on Jan 20, 2019, is the largest solar project in the state of Colorado. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)
A Colorado Sun analysis of $223 million in tax credits awarded from 2013 to 2018 found that the state is often doling out taxpayer dollars without much evidence that each tax credit is producing economic activity that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise
UPDATE: According to Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the state filed a motion on July 30 to extend the deadline until Sept. 4 to request the entire full Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals hear the case. The request was granted on Tuesday.
“The Attorney General has said he will defend the constitution and that’s what he will do,” Pacheco said by email Thursday morning.
Complete Colorado attempted to get hold of Weiser through Pacheco before the story published; however, Pacheco did not return phone calls or email requests until after the story published. Weiser was also aware prior to publication that Complete Colorado was attempting to get hold of him through a series of Tweets with Complete Colorado.
Regardless, Complete Colorado regrets the original error.
DENVER — Although he campaigned on a promise to defend the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) despite his personal opinion of the nearly three decades old constitutional amendment, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser made his first move in the opposite direction by letting a deadline pass to argue an ongoing TABOR case in federal court.
Weiser had until Tuesday to ask that the entire circuit court hear the case after a 3-judge panel from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling. The lower court had ruled that local governments do not have the right to sue.
Voters need to keep the Colorado Medicaid program in mind when the tax and spend coalition starts beating the drums for repealing the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), which limits the annual growth of a portion of state spending to a very reasonable formula of population growth plus inflation.
In the FY 2017-18 Colorado Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), the State Controller’s Office reports that state expenditures fell “due to decreases in the social assistance function resulting from less spending on purchased medical services.” In other words, lower Medicaid enrollment means less state spending.
Though total state expenditures grew in most other categories, the Medicaid spending decline was the biggest contributor to the total spending reduction of $1.1 billion, or 4.3 percent.
For most Colorado Medicaid patients, the state makes a per-member-per month payment even if a Medicaid enrollee uses no health care at all. Most hospitals get additional payments based on the number of Medicaid patients they treat. If there are fewer Medicaid clients, all of the providers receiving per-member-per-month payments lose money. They all have an incentive to support Medicaid program expansion in good times and in bad.