Category Archives: Transportation

Sep 18

OPPOSITION STATEMENT TO 2024 RTD TAX MEASURE

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OPPOSITION STATEMENT TO 2024 RTD TAX MEASURE

Even the strongest supporter of mass transit must rethink this tax.  It’s not a good idea nor is it the right time.  Vote NO on the measure.

–      Ridership is way down.  It dropped to only 65.2 million “boardings” in 2023, when it had been 103.2 million boardings in 2019.  That’s a huge drop.  RTD wants this for ongoing operations, but that level of spending no longer matches the ridership.

  • Management has not kept riders safe. Many people avoid using buses and light rail due to the dirty needles, assaults, open drug use, filth and crime.
  • Management does not operate intelligently. How many times have long stretches of the rail system been shut down?  Poor maintenance has left some rail routes going no faster than 10 miles per hour, keeping commuters from getting to work on time.  Bus routes suffer reliability issues.

Lifting the TABOR budget limits would be a FOREVER tax.  No sunset date.  No revisiting it later.

Having no limit on budgets paid off construction debt of $779 million over the past 25 years.  The project was built and paid off.  The old tax scheme has ended.  This extension is a tax increase by keeping what otherwise would be returned to you.  If it were not a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights requirement to vote on renewed taxes, it would not have to go to the ballot.  When politicians mislead you to get your vote, it should be a red flag.

There is no plan to use this renewed tax plan for new bonds, and the revenue would just get dumped into the general fund.  Vote down this tax extension and give RTD the opportunity to come back with specific ideas and costs, instead of a blank check for who-knows-what.

The state legislature has been seriously considering  removal of an elected Board of Directors.  We don’t even know who will be controlling the tax increase in a few years!

RTD charges you sales tax on a vast majority of goods, taking money out of your pocket when you buy toilet paper, school supplies, clothing, and groceries. It adds up, the average taxpayer gives up a few hundred dollars to RTD each year in sales tax. Have you gotten your money’s worth?

The system needs to be fixed first.  Taxpayers should demand some accountability.  RTD must first use current dollars to reverse ridership decline and move to a transit system that is not inefficient, inconvenient and even dangerous.  Giving RTD this money does not necessarily mean that light rail will go faster than 10 miles an hour or clean up the stations, buses and trains.  Just having a bigger budget does not guarantee reforms.  Don’t throw good money after bad.

Vote NO and keep your RTD TABOR refund.

 

Jul 15

Jefferson County’s commissioners seek elimination of TABOR refunds — again

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Boxes of ballots await tabulation in Jefferson County from the Primary Election in June.

Deborah Grigsby/Denver Gazette

 

For the third time in five years, Jefferson County’s elected officials are asking voters to allow the local government to spend all of the revenue that it collects above the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights limit, thereby eliminating refunds to taxpayers.

For fiscal year 2024, that refund amount is estimated to be $54.4 million.

Last year, the county refunded $39.4 million to roughly 210,000 property taxpayers.

The county’s voters rejected the idea twice — in 2019 and 2022 — but the county’s commissioners this month insisted that, after “engaging” with the public through “both qualitative and quantitative research,” voters need to decide the question again.

“It is the spirit of TABOR to bring questions like this to the voters and let them decide,” Commissioner Andy Kerr said in a statement. “TABOR demands that community members engage with their government to address challenges like this.”

“I have great pride in Jefferson County, but we’re falling behind in essential county services, and that’s where we come in as county fiscal stewards,” Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper said during the meeting that sent the measure to the November ballot.

Under TABOR, local voters may allow their respective government to “debruce” — that is, permit a county, municipality or school district to eliminate the TABOR spending limit, and then to retain and spend all of the revenue it has collected.

Jefferson County is among a few counties that have not “debruced.” A majority of Colorado’s 64 counties have done so.

Last week, commissioners Kerr, Dahlkemper and Tracy Kraft-Tharp voted to place the debrucing question on the ballot. Continue reading →

Jun 25

TABOR Committee Press Statement About RTD Ballot Question

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June 25, 2024

 

 

                                                                                                                                Contact: Penn Pfiffner
Phone: 303-233-7731
Email: constecon@hotmail.com

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) is proposing a 2024 ballot measure to permanently eliminate TABOR spending and revenue caps. The RTD has retained hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer’s TABOR rebates over recent years. Yet, the RTD Board wants to claim this proposed ballot measure isn’t a tax increase.

The TABOR Committee opposes the RTD ballot measure to permanently eliminate taxpayer’s protections.

  1. The ballot language doesn’t legally comply with TABOR by clearly expressing the amount of the tax increase. The district has retained millions of TABOR rebates, the proposed measure is a tax increase.
  2. TABOR limits waivers to four years, allowing for voter review. The RTD ballot measure permanently eliminates taxpayer protections. It’s a forever tax increase with a blank check.

 

TABOR Committee, board chairman Penn Pfiffner stated: “The Regional Transportation District (RTD) is one of the largest tax collectors in Colorado. RTD wants to use misleading ballot language to eliminate TABOR rebates. This is clearly a tax increase and a blank check to a government district that has failed to deliver on FasTracks campaign promises. Taxpayers would be best served getting their TABOR rebates starting in 2025 to use on a transportation method that fits their lives.”

 

The TABOR Committee was formed in 2009 to protect the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).
DefendTABOR.com

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Jun 13

Voters will likely be asked to permanently spare RTD from TABOR limits

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Voters will likely be asked to permanently spare RTD from TABOR limits

By Nathaniel Minor

  • Jun. 12, 2024, 5:16 pm

 

 

 

 

Kevin J. Beaty/DenveriteAn RTD train slowly approaches the Belleview Avenue station in south Denver. June 6, 2024.

The Regional Transportation District will likely add a question to the November 2024 ballot asking voters to permanently allow it to keep revenue that would otherwise be refunded to taxpayers under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

An RTD board committee unanimously endorsed the “debrucing” ballot question on Tuesday, a reference to TABOR’s author Douglas Bruce.

RTD’s full board will vote in late June on whether to send the question to voters. The agency currently has two different exemptions from TABOR for different parts of its budget; one expires later this year, the other in 2050. The ballot measure would ask voters to spare RTD’s entire budget from TABOR limits permanently.

Board chair Erik Davidson said if the soon-to-expire exemption were to lapse, RTD might have to refund tens of millions of dollars a year to taxpayers.

He also cited recent polling commissioned by RTD that showed nearly 70 percent support for the ballot measure among respondents.

“To me, it’s an easy answer to say that we proceed,” Davidson told the committee on Tuesday.

Most voters know TABOR as the reason Coloradans vote on taxes. But it does a lot more than that.

The lengthy constitutional amendment voters passed in 1992 also puts restrictions on how much revenue every government in Colorado can collect every year. Any excess revenue beyond a limit set by formulas within TABOR must be refunded to voters. TABOR also contains a “ratchet effect” that can lead to tighter limits and bigger refunds after a recession. Continue reading →

May 09

EDITORIAL: Rein in violations of taxpayer’s rights

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EDITORIAL: Rein in violations of taxpayer’s rights

    •  Updated 

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The 2024 tax and audit season, which generally stretches from mid-January to mid- or late April, hasn’t been quite as challenging as it was in pandemic years, industry experts said.

Government is supposed to be of, by and for the people. That’s why Colorado voters passed the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 1992, forcing the state government and other taxing jurisdictions to obtain voter approval before raising taxes or spending revenues that outpace inflation and population.

Moments after voters passed the law, politicians began routing around it. They began levying and/or raising car registration “fees,” energy production “fees” professional registration “fees,” doing-business “fees,” plastic bag “fees,” phone “fees,” tire “fees,” alcohol “fees” and much more.

Politicians who don’t want to ask for a tax increase — those who think they know what’s best for other peoples’ money — learned early on they could call a “tax” a “fee” and from TABOR become free. Courts, which make up a major component of state and local taxing jurisdictions, have gone along with this ruse.

Boldly flouting federal law, the Colorado Legislature recently passed Senate Bill 184 to impose a “Congestion Impact Fee” on rental vehicles. The money will go to fund passenger rail and other Democratic pet projects marketed as good for the climate.

To continue reading this story, please click (HERE) to at the Denver Gazette.

Jun 20

Coloradans have voted on 36 TABOR-related ballot measures since 1993, rejecting 69% of them

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Coloradans have voted on 36 TABOR-related ballot measures since 1993, rejecting 69% of them

By Jackie Mitchell
In Ballot measures
June 19, 2023 at 9:57 PM

Coloradans have decided on 36 statewide ballot measures that were designed to increase revenue for the state, which required voter approval under TABOR. Of the 36 measures, 11 (30.56%) were approved and 25 (69.44%) were defeated.

Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), adopted in 1992, was designed to require statewide voter approval of all new taxes, tax rate increases, extensions of expiring taxes, mill levy increases, valuation for property assessment increases, or tax policy changes resulting in increased tax revenue.

Of the 36 measures, 17 were referred to the ballot by the state legislature and 19 were placed on the ballot through citizen initiative petitions. Of the 11 approved measures, 10 were referred to the ballot by the state legislature and one was a citizen initiative.

Highlights:

 

  • 14 of the measures were designed to increase a tax. Of the 14 measures, two were approved and 12 were defeated. In 2004, voters approved an initiative to increase the tobacco tax to fund educational and healthcare programs. In 2020, voters approved a measure placed on the ballot by the state legislature to increase tobacco taxes and create a tax on nicotine products to fund health and education programs.

Continue reading →

Nov 12

Did You Know This Is In The 2022 Colorado Democrats Platform?

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No wonder they have “Tax and Spend,” “Spend and Tax” agenda.

They don’t like being constrained.

No wonder we don’t like their policies.

They try to undermine TABOR at every instance.

They now call them “fees” instead of “taxes,” or categorize them as “enterprises” to skirt TABOR.

They believe that “your” money is “their money.”

If you don’t believe us, here’s a screenshot of page 9 of their 2022 platform: 

 

 

(https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6205490069ee021c5cb4f075/t/6260292fec2b017410bd0e73/1650469170651/Colorado+Democrats+2022+Platform.pdf)

Pay attention, Colorado, pay attention….

May 06

Democrats’ top legislative priority: re-election

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Democrats’ top legislative priority: re-election

    • By Mark Hillman

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Mark Hillman

God saw fit to stop at 10 commandments, but politicians can’t leave well enough alone, so a series of “Eleventh Commandments” apply to them. One of those admonishes: Thou shall not make the voters more cynical.

This year, Democrats at our State Capitol are breaking that commandment, too.

So, let’s take a little walk down memory lane and remember this journey through Election Day.

Last week, Gov. Jared Polis and legislative Democrats tossed aside 30 years of fierce opposition to Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) which they’ve blamed for everything from crumbling roads to failing schools. Instead, they held a press conference to tout “their” plan to send every taxpayer a $400 check barely one month before voters receive their general election ballots.

There’s just one problem: that money already belongs to taxpayers.

Continue reading →