The Colorado Legislature ended its session about three months ago, and now it appears all of the talks of a “Special Session” were just that – talk.
One of the many bad things the far-left democrats in the legislature accomplished the last session was to gut the Taxpayer Bill Of Rights (TABOR)…Sort of…They actually passed a Referendum (Proposition CC) to be put before voters in November. The initiative would allow the State of Colorado to keep all of our money it collects instead of returning it when revenues run afoul of the TABOR Equation.
FYI, the oversimplified version of the TABOR Equation allows the General Fund (AKA Discretionary Spending – think slush fund) to grow by population plus inflation. Seems pretty reasonable, it (in theory) forces the politicians at the State Capitol to prioritize discretionary spending. In practice, the overall budget has skyrocketed since TABOR’s inception, starting with the 1993 Legislative Session. The legislature has found some pretty creative workarounds.
Of course, we can’t forget the first gutting of TABOR in 2005, led by some prominent Republicans. We’re not naming names here, because most of these turncoats aren’t relevant anymore. But Referendum C (Ref C) eliminated what they called the “Ratchet Effect” of TABOR. What TABOR pre-Ref C did was when we had deflation or a population decrease, it lowered the amount the legislature could spend, and the surplus was returned to taxpayers. It essentially reset the baseline for slush fund spending in the State. Sounds reasonable.
If less money is coming in and fewer people are using services, we should tighten the budget, right? Instead, with Republican support in 2005 Ref C passed – the political careers of a few politicians went with it.
So, why did Democrats (and we heard some Republicans as well) want a Special Session? It was mainly because the polling on Prop CC was upside down; no one wants to mess with TABOR. So the Dems thought they could put a bunch of lipstick on this pig, but Revlon couldn’t fill the order for that large of an amount.
Good riddance to the idea of a Special Session!
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Small victories add up. And the credit goes to Patrick Neville, minority leader in the house and all the R’s who signed the letter to Polis for no special session. Solidarity..Polis was not able to peel off unstable R’s to make it look bipartisian. ❤️
There are a couple of, Recall Governor Jared Polis, petitions floating around the state. One that is currently active claims great popular support. A second one is “waiting in the wings” if the first is not successful. I wonder if our Democrat friends are having second thoughts about the, “I’m just doing what I promised the voters I would do if elected.”, “Hurry Up” game plan. 2020 is “around the corner” and there are a lot of unhappy voters of the “Oil”, “Gun Rights”, “No More Taxes”, frame of mind. Conservative Voters come in many shapes, colors and backgrounds.