#TABOR
#ItsYourMoneyNotTheirs
#ThankGodForTABOR
#VoteNo
#CoLeg
Feb
10
Category Archives: Twitter
Feb
03
If Only America Discussed Tax Policy Like They Do The Super Bowl
If
Feb
01
Ohio Residents Just Abolished Two Villages Over Tax Increases
November 26, 2019
Jared Walczak
Last week, a New York Times reporter reached out to ask if I had heard that the village of Amelia, Ohio was dissolving over a tax increase. Facing an unpopular new tax, voters went to the polls and just… abolished their local government.
I wasn’t aware of the drama bubbling up in Amelia (or in nearby Newtonsville, also dissolving over a new tax), but I wasn’t surprised, either. As the resulting Times article notes, at least 130 municipalities dissolved between 2000 and 2011, without, presumably, seeing the communities descend into anarchy. The loss of Amelia and Newtonsville brings the count of recently dissolved Ohio municipalities to 14. So what’s going on, and what do taxes have to do with it?
In most of the country, the governmental hierarchy is relatively straightforward: states are divided into counties, and those counties contain some range of municipalities—cities, towns, villages, boroughs, townships, hamlets, and the like. But, especially outside more densely populated regions, you can also find vast tracts of unincorporated land, where no (or limited) municipal government exists below the county level. Here, core services like police, fire, and emergency services, along with road maintenance and other government functions, are provided by the county or even the state, while more municipal-oriented services—water and sewer or waste management, for instance—are either privately provided or non-existent.
Feb
01
Bill to transfer funds to road and bridge projects dies in committee
The #coleg is discussing the possibility of raising the #gastax. Luckily, our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights makes you the decisionmaker, not politicians.
A bill that sponsors say would add revenue to funding for Colorado’s roads and bridges without raising taxes was shelved by Democrats in a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 044 was postponed indefinitely by the Democratic-controlled State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
The bill would allocate 10 percent of revenue from sales and use taxes on vehicles toward the state’s highway users tax fund and local governments. That revenue would be moved from the general fund under the legislation.
A fiscal note for the bill says it would transfer $366.3 million in fiscal 2021 from the general fund to the highway users tax fund, and $380.7 million in the following year.
Jan
31
So Let Me Get This Straight, I Pay Taxes On….
Jan
30
How will Colorado pay for better roads if taxpayers don’t want to pay for better roads?
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.
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.
Jan
29
If You Want To Raise Taxes, Ask Voters For Their Consent
Jan
29
Conservatives: Let’s Fund Colorado’s Priorities. Liberals: Let’s Blame TABOR
Jan
29
GUEST COLUMN: No more kicking the can down the (potholed) road
“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
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
TABOR Response To: “Officials weighing options after early releases to reduce jail overcrowding because of a $5.5 million budget cut”
TABOR friends and supporters,
The front page of the Denver Post features an article by Shelly Bradbury that specifically accuses TABOR for the early release of Jefferson County jail inmates. (See 8th paragraph—highlighted in yellow).
- TABOR does not dictate a cut in any budget.
- TABOR does require a vote of the people on whether to raise taxes or not.
- TABOR restricts the growth of government spending, only allowing it to increase by population growth + inflation.
- TABOR says that additional revenue over the limit be returned to taxpayers.
Please see: Inmates out early