{"id":2916,"date":"2018-01-18T04:22:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T04:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/52.10.1.109\/?p=2916"},"modified":"2018-01-31T14:14:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T21:14:06","slug":"tabor-at-center-of-legislatures-budgetary-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/?p=2916","title":{"rendered":"TABOR at center of legislature\u2019s budgetary debates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any discussion on Colorado\u2019s state budget eventually comes around to TABOR, especially when a mix of Republican and Democratic legislators are around. The voter-approved Taxpayers\u2019 Bill of Rights, which limits government spending without the OK of voters, is either the panacea to overreach or a strangulation on functional government.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve started to cut away, not just at the fat, but the muscle and the bone. I think we\u2019re all feeling that,\u201d state Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver, told the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 18. <\/span><\/p>\n

Herod, a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging TABOR, told the chamber\u2019s Business Leaders for Responsible Government that the 1990s-era state-constitutional amendment has effectively hamstrung what she called Colorado\u2019s \u201ccrumbling\u201d education and transportation systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if we really truly want to invest in infrastructure in the state, we need to do something about TABOR,\u201d the Democratic representative said. \u201c\u2026 What we end up doing is shaving here and shaving there and really not doing the job at anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Republican legislators on the panel, titled \u201cOur State Budget \u2026 Solutions for Change,\u201d disagreed. Rep. Cole Wist of Centennial adamantly defended TABOR, noting that taxes can always be increased with a simple affirmative vote of the people. He also noted that the now-$28.3 billion state budget has increased 45 percent over the last eight years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cImagine if your family was earning 45 percent more than it did eight years ago. I think you\u2019d probably say you\u2019re doing pretty well,\u201d Wist told the room of business and civic leaders. \u201c\u2026 Our government is simply growing too fast and spending too much money.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sen Jack Tate, R-Centennial, argued that TABOR\u2019s system of voter approval had essentially affirmed a basic truth about government behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if there\u2019s ever been a case where the executive branch or any agency has ever come to the legislature and said, you know, we only need 95 percent of what we had last year,\u201d Tate said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sen. Cheri Jahn, D-Arvada, countered that Republicans have consistently refused to let the voters vote up or down on proposed tax increases, arguably defying one of the basic tenets TABOR\u2019s will of the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single time we have tried to do that in the legislature, we can\u2019t get it out of the body to send it to the people to vote on,\u201d she said, noting TABOR-instituted refunds have been as little as $14. \u201cThat money could have been used for transportation. \u2026 It\u2019s kind of damned if you do, damned if you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the budget is technically greater than $28 billion, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle stressed that the legislature has far less than that\u2014about $11 billion\u2014to actually allocate after legally-bound funds are removed from the discretionary balance sheet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rep. Bob Rankin, a northwestern Colorado Republican, was the only panelist who serves on the General Assembly\u2019s six-member Joint Budget Committee, which he called the legislature\u2019s most bipartisan body.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe get the governor\u2019s recommended budget the first of November and we go to work,\u201d he said. \u201cIn about March, we go present that to the legislature and they start to pay attention and run a lot of screwy things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Special interests and pressure come next, according to the legislator<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about a thousand little spending items. Some are big. Some aren\u2019t. And every one of these things, believe me, there\u2019s a lobbyist or advocacy group waiting outside of the Joint Budget Committee with a really convincing story,\u201d Rankin said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enter the world of partisanship, which all said influences the process<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u201cI think everyone in this room would agree that\u2019s part of the problem,\u201d Jahn said. \u201cPolitics seems to be in everything when, really, politics should be out of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, Wist said it was important for the legislature to remain open to new ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe most dangerous phrase in politics is we\u2019ve always done it this way,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any discussion on Colorado\u2019s state budget eventually comes around to TABOR, especially when a mix of Republican and Democratic legislators are around. The voter-approved Taxpayers\u2019 Bill of Rights, which limits government spending without the OK of voters, is either the panacea to overreach or a strangulation on functional government. \u201cWe\u2019ve started to cut away, not …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,9,5],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-2916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-development","category-news","category-south-metro-partners","tag-budgetary-debates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}