Bill Owens "TABOR is Broken"

Bill Owens opposing TABOR in Colorado

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News & Politics

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• TABOR
• Bill
• Owens
• Colorado
• Maine
• Governor

[milofonbil]

The same people that want the destruction of Colorado and California are moving the same program under different names to Oklahoma, Maine, and Washington (I-1033).

Nothing shows that things are better under TABOR

Schools: After 12 years of TABOR, Colorado ranks 47th in K-12 education funding as a share of state income. Colorado rates an "F" in resource adequacy according to Quality Counts 2009 survey. SAT and ACT scores are falling, STEM scores are falling, pupil/teacher ratio is growing.

[milofonbil]

There is no evidence that Colorado is doing well under TABOR. Show me real evidence like the condition of the roads, universities, K-12 schools, fire departments, police departments, medicare, etc. K-12 education has suffered. Higher education has been severely cut. Public safety has suffered tremendously. Public health has gotten worse.

Have any of those conditions improved since 1992? No, not really. Why have people moved to suspend TABOR in Colorado?

CA has what's called Gann Limit

[tonytonytee]

but tabor is only in one state at the current moment, so if tabor prevents states from building up money in good times then why is it that the states that were able to build up a reserve never did ? seems like actually colorado is doing better with tabor because the governmenty was forced to live on a budget..

[milofonbil]

The boom and bust cycles are a product of business growing exponentially until they hit boundaries of diminishing returns. I don't see business interested in controlling the business cycle. This is because as individual companies they are interested in maximizing profit and expanding as much as possible.

It is well known that government can affect and possibly regulate the business cycle by changes in taxation and limiting the growth of buisiness. TABOR takes these controls away.

[milofonbil]

Normally, during the first year of a recession the sustained levels of spending play a significant role in helping the recovery. But during the second year, states don't get the revenues anymore and reduce their spending to align their budgets with the revised revenues. TABOR helps to delay recoveries due to clamping spending when it's most needed - at the bottom of the business cycle. During the boom part of the cycle TABOR prevents building up reserves for the next bust.

[milofonbil]

Colorado's state tax revenues were down 23.6% in the second quarter of 2009. Only six states had larger declines. The national average drop was 16.3%, and only two states had drops of more 27.3%, New Mexico (30.8%) and Alaska (86.5%). Colorado relies heavily on sales taxes. A poor economy immediately means a cutback on a state's income.

[milofonbil]

Now you are throwing me several red herrings. We were talking about TABOR.

Only North Dakota has seen net job creation. As a result, they have enough revenue to meet the budget. The rest of the states fell short on revenue and therefore have less revenue than spending.

States, counties and local municipalities get revenues from a mix of income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and excise taxes. I'm not sure if your observation of the Northeast is necessarily true for all states.

[tonytonytee]

explain to me this then, if tabor is the problem why is it that 49 of the 50 states are in the red ?? in the northeast they have the highest property and income taxes in the nation, it is not unusual for property taxes to be anywhere from 5,000 to 12,000 a year for a median priced home? why is it that those counties and states are more in the red than colorado if the amount of taxes that are collected are the problem? can not wait to hear the answer on this one

[milofonbil]

Real funny heh-heh-heh .... Of course TABOR has to do with school taxes. City, county taxes and school taxes are collected from sales taxes *and* property taxes; especially the brand of TABOR that Eyman is pushing with his I-1033 here in Washington.

Your second argument is a strawman.

[tonytonytee]

well that is funny because tabor has nothing to do with school taxes. it only has to do with city county and state taxes. all of the taxes to the school districts are voted on. detroit michigan has some of the highest property taxes in the country and yet they have a 70% dropout rate. i guess you can blame that on tabor as well.. having reasonable taxes does not make someone greedy.. i guess if that was the case the founding fathers of the country were greedy for not paying to england.