For well over three decades, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights has protected Coloradans against money-hungry government. Amended into our state constitution by rank-and-file voters in 1992, TABOR has been the public’s last line of defense against predatory politicians.

It limits government growth — capping how much more revenue can be collected each year — and requires tax hikes to be put to a vote of the people.

Which is why so many politicians hate it. Over the years, they have ginned up one cash grab after another in their nonstop attempts to get around the landmark policy.

Sometimes, they have declared taxes “fees,” which aren’t covered by TABOR. Sometimes, they’ve gone to court and sued. Sometimes, they’ve gone to voters with a hard-luck story about how they no longer can provide basic services — and must keep extra tax dollars collected above TABOR’s revenue caps. TABOR allows that — if voters OK it.

Sometimes, they conjure up more elaborate schemes in hopes of tricking voters into sabotaging TABOR, perhaps leaving it in place but in name only.

One such scheme, Senate Bill 26-135, is making its way through Colorado’s legislature. It would erase wildly popular TABOR refunds for the foreseeable future — a backdoor tax hike by another name. It would inflate the state budget by at least $2 billion over the next decade.

TABOR refunds are the excess tax revenue Coloradans pay into the public till of state and local government. That surplus revenue is money collected by government over the rates of inflation and population growth combined from year to year. TABOR allows government to keep up to that threshold to accommodate reasonable expansion of services to the public.

The limits on growth have helped keep government in check since TABOR’s enactment, and many politicians have been trying ever after to undermine the limits through deceptive proposals like SB 26-135.

The bill sounds reasonable enough at first blush, of course — just like all the other efforts to monkey-wrench TABOR’s taxpayer safeguards. Like many of those efforts, SB 26-135 dangles funding for Colorado’s public schools as the lure to hook voters.

The legislation would place a proposal on next fall’s statewide ballot asking voters, “Shall state investment in K-12 public education increase two percent each year for the next ten years … without raising taxes but instead funded by raising the annual limit on state fiscal year spending …” The catch is that “raising taxes” and “raising the annual limit on fiscal year spending” amount to one and the same. The latter is simply tax money that was collected — and is supposed to be returned.

It gets even more devious. If voters agree to this deceptive pitch to keep excess revenue, it also would permanently lift the limit on government growth — even after the 10-year toll for schools is over. That amounts to an added, annual infusion of play money for lawmakers, for good. It would gut TABOR’s most important feature in reining in runaway government growth.

Do Colorado’s public schools have enough money? It’s a big question and a separate debate that must take into account the state’s wide range of school districts, from poor to wealthy. Don’t forget all Colorado school districts are funded by a mix of state and local revenue.

What’s clear, though, is if lawmakers had cared that much about school funding at the state level in the first place, they would have prioritized it rather than squeezed it to grow other government programs.

Instead, ruling Democrats at the Capitol are trying to disable the only policy that can keep them out of the public’s pockets.

EDITORIAL: Another attempt to gut TABOR