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initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy

Blue Colorado Big Spenders

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“The Trump years may have cemented Colorado’s blue-state status — time will tell,” writes Alex Burness in the Denver Post, “but voters in the Centennial State continue to hold a hard line on anything that has even a whiff [of] new tax.”

Burness is talking about Proposition CC, a measure placed on Tuesday’s ballot by the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature, which would have allowed state government to keep and spend $37 million annually coming into government coffers over the state’s constitutional spending cap, rather than refunding those dollars to taxpayers as required by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights passed back in the 1990s.

The elite supporters of Proposition CC devoted more than $4 million to promoting the measure, outspending opponents better than two-to-one and arguing that government desperately needed the money for education and transportation. Opponents cried foul over the official ballot summary voters read, which began with the words “Without a tax increase . . .”

 “But the measure lost,” Burness informs, “and it wasn’t close.”

“The measure’s failure amounts to a significant victory for supporters of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights,” Colorado Public Radio reports. “That constitutional amendment requires voter approval for all tax increases, sets a revenue limit for every government in the state and requires any surpluses be returned to taxpayers.”

“Who’s in charge?” TABOR author Douglas Bruce asked years ago. “We, the people, who earn the money, or the politicians who want to spend it?”

The answer from supposedly blue-leaning Colorado voters was unequivocal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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6 replies on “Blue Colorado Big Spenders”

Because the politicians made the taxpayers aware they had a choice.
Won’t make that mistake again. Were the taxpayers getting a good education in public schools they would have realized that even being asked was sufficient evidence to justify turning out the incumbents.

“Supposedly blue-leaning Colorado voters”

That seems to imply a contradicted expectation that Coloradoans who don’t want to be over-taxed would vote Republican.

In this universe, though, Republican politicians talk a good game and then do the same things Democrats do — raise taxes or put it on the credit card — with at most fake regretful expressions on their faces.

Voting Democrat or Republican for lower taxes or smaller government is like copulating for virginity.

Much truth in what you say, of course, but one difference in Colorado is that the Democrats were pretty united in favor of Proposition CC — taking this money and letting government spend it rather than refunding it to taxpayers. Republicans were overwhelmingly against CC.

That included former GOP Gov. Bill Owens, who, as governor years ago, supported allowing government to spend money that would have been otherwise refunded to taxpayers. Which validates your general point.

A temporary victory, at best. Legislators will find a judge somewhere in Colorado who will say the state’s constitutional limit on spending violates the federal constitution, because of disparate impact somewhere, somehow. Ultimately, the constitutional limits on spending will be invalidated, most likely by citing the need to spend more on education. Big government demands nothing less. What Democrats don’t get at the ballot box, they will seek in the courts.

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