What Denver Post readers have to say about TABOR

TABOR seemed like a good idea at the time, but it has outlived its original purpose. The idea of taxpayer refunds of “excess” revenues is ridiculous when huge budget cuts are necessary.

The necessity of 2005’s Referendum C for a five-year TABOR timeout illustrates how our state tried to overcome the problems TABOR created. The original idea of a smaller government conflicts with the high rate of growth Colorado has experienced. Our government is hamstrung by inflexible, contradictory rules.

The 1982 Gallagher Amendment further reduces/restricts income from property taxes. Taxpayers should be willing to pay higher property taxes in order to provide increased revenues to fund legitimate needs.

Our legislature should take a long-term look at all of our tax laws and develop a plan to present to the voters. This needs to be a comprehensive overhaul which will stop the current budget restrictions on K-12 education and infrastructure.

TABOR keeps the government out of my pockets. With the growing population and an evergrowing tax base, the government should not have a need to continually raise taxes. Without TABOR, that is what would happen. Elected officials do not represent their constituents when it comes to taxes, they want to feather their own nest by paying themselves higher salaries. Other states would like to pass a similar law, but they have so many people on public dole that it is not likely to happen.

TABOR was deliberately designed to break the state government and it is doing a pretty good job of it.

Randomly selected revenue formulas and other structural impediments prevent the state from budgeting in any rational way. We continue to move towards infrastructure privatization, putting un-elected corporate bosses in charge of our roadways. Colorado’s contribution to its public schools and higher education institutions is among the lowest in the country with no improvement in sight. Our rural schools and students are particularly affected.

Many disagree about the size and scope of government, but most believe government should at least function. There is a good reason no other state has adopted anything like TABOR over the last 25 years.

The inability of the state government to control spending was the entire reason the TABOR amendment came into being. Integrated ways to grow spending at a slow rate, or getting permission from the electorate to exceed that rate, were consistently ignored by the deceptive institution of “fees” (a.k.a. taxes that are not called taxes), deferment of needed maintenance, and starvation of less glamorous infrastructure programs in favor of high-profile prestige projects. This inevitable conclusion is that TABOR has failed to achieve its goal of reining in the desire to spend like drunken sailors.

Yet where would we be without TABOR to protect the purse all these years? No doubt we would be taxed much heavier, still paying fees for everything, much deeper in debt, and still have “unfulfilled needs” to leverage increased spending requests. Conclusion: Keep TABOR.

Thank you for opening the debate about Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution. The question, though, about whether it is working is irrelevant. Of course it is. If you are a proponent of limiting government, of “drowning it in a bathtub,” you favor it. If you favor popular democracy, you, too, favor it.

Contrarily, if you are a believer, in the words of Paul Wellstone, that government can be a force for good in a republican form of governance, you oppose it.

In the end, TABOR, which is no Bill of Rights, simply gives cover to legislators unwilling to make tough calls on taxes. It’s always easy to cut them. But raising them or principally opposing them with actual votes requires a strength of courage sorely lacking in today’s big-donor-dependent, poll-driven, prevailing-wind politicians populating our legislature. The days of the great principled Colorado statesmen and stateswomen seem, sadly, to be gone.

TABOR has lost effectiveness over the years as a restraint on government spending. Lawmakers found ways around it and the Colorado Supreme Court weakened it by frustrating its intent. Most notably, the court disenfranchised voters by ruling that a “fee” is not a “tax.” This ruling is pure sophistry that defies common sense.

The ongoing efforts to weaken TABOR serve as continuing examples of the powerful forces arrayed against government accountability. Power flows to politicians like water runs downhill.

TABOR should be defended and kept as one of the few lights being shined on how politicians spend taxpayer money.

TABOR is definitely not working. My husband and I both voted for it years ago mostly because we didn’t completely understand the consequences of it. (Money back on “extra taxes”? Sounds great!) We were younger and it didn’t occur to us that’s the money that pays for all those things we need. We need to spend money on things that matter — especially our schools. Colorado schools are failing and tuition is going up for higher education — and it’s all because we refuse to finance the things that are important. And that’s because of TABOR.

TABOR has outlived its usefulness. It has starved our cities, counties and state from needed funds to maintain their existence.

If you like your potholes, if you like your police and fire departments being underfunded, if you like the continuing deterioration of your schools, if you like the continuing deterioration of your infrastructure, if you like the continuing bickering over city, county and state budgets, thank Douglas Bruce (the author of TABOR). If the inflation rate for your family is 3 percent, your governments experience that same 3 percent. The only choice you have is to ask for a raise or cut back on expenditures. Your governments have to do the same.

It’s time to scrap TABOR and replace it with something better. But can we all come together to accomplish that? Many communities are one natural disaster from bankruptcy. Will federal funds be there to bail us out?

While I believe that TABOR should never have been approved by Colorado voters, the one element of the law that I think must be changed is the requirement to put any tax increase to a statewide vote.

A majority of voters will never vote to increase taxes on themselves unless public services have declined to a precipitous degree. To prevent such declines, the legislature must have the power to increase revenues for identified public needs whether voters agree or not.

TABOR is the best thing to happen for the taxpayers of Colorado. Leave it alone.