TABOR News

In Wisconsin

Legislators Rewrite Wisconsin TABOR -- Lasee and Wood conceded that they must still get Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo) and other party leaders to back their ideas.

GOP shocked at critics of spending-limit plan -- Former Republican Majority Leader Mike Ellis says Wisconsin needs a Legislature whose members have the guts to make tough spending decisions rather than one that merely wants to adopt a constitutional amendment to limit all levels of government spending.

Spending Amendment Worries Some in GOP -- A growing number of Assembly Republicans are worried about the plan their party's leaders are developing to amend the state constitution to limit state and local spending.

TABOR Foes Band Together -- The coalition includes local government and school officials, labor groups and health care interests.

Appleton Area Reps Challenge TABOR -- County officials, skeptical of legislation designed to curb state and local spending increases, want area legislators to explain their views on the plan.

Educators say TABOR Too Limiting -- "Wisconsin needs a full public debate (on the issue)," said Wausau School District Superintendent Charles Skurka. "What do citizens want from their state?"

Ramming TABOR  -- Wisconsin Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo, addressed the Marinette County Board, saying this about the taxpayers bill of rights:  "Don't close your mind and say 'no' to it.  Let's see what the proposal is. If we wanted to ram it down your throat, we would have done it two months ago."

Politicians spending time on taxpayer bill of rights  -- Now the race is on in the Capitol to "Wisconsinize" TABOR and come up with a constitutional amendment proposal that could be approved by the Legislature meeting in extraordinary session early this summer.

Dr. No and the Spectre of ALEC -- Ghostwriting State Legislation

Minnesota

Council Members Blasts Taxpayer’s League -- Councilmember Bob Zagaros called TABOR a “solution in search of a problem,” and said that if TABOR is passed, city councils might as well be eliminated and only have elected officials at the county level.

City officials oppose legislation proposals -- TELs/TABOR would mandate that government be run by formula rather than through thoughtful, deliberative process designed to ensure public policy issues are fully explored and considered.

City Council Opposes TABOR -- Dan Erkkila is the Grand Rapids City Council’s representative to the League of Minnesota Cities. He said, “It isn’t the business at the state level to be prescribing how cities run business--it is the city’s business.

TABOR Horror Stories from  Colorado

Lawmakers Consider Billion Dollar TABOR Bailout -- Lawmakers are leaning toward a plan to borrow as much as $1 billion to shore up the state budget. Without the loan, called securitization, the state would have to cut spending by $194 million during the 2004-05 fiscal year, which starts July 1, and slice $393.5 million out of the 2005-06 budget.

Deficit News: It's all bad -- Legislative budget writers got hit with more bad news when their chief economist told them Colorado is now facing a $610 million deficit over the next three years. The culprit is lower-than-expected inflation. "So if you have lower inflation, then even if you collect the exact same amount of revenues, under TABOR you have to refund more," said Mauer.

Fuzzy totals complicate TABOR Problem -- Lawmakers would have to cut about $44 million more in the budget, or about $194 million total. The change also raised the three-year deficit to $610 million.

Taxpayer's Bill of Rights hobbles programs, wage competitiveness -- The TABOR revenue limit must be changed to keep state government spending on par with the economy.

Budget committee comes up with own plan to fix constitution -- Sen. Ron Teck, R-Grand Junction, said it will be difficult for lawmakers to get the two-thirds vote needed to put the plan on the November ballot and to convince voters to approve it unless the details are easy to understand.

COLORADO’S FISCAL PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN SEVERE -- Colorado’s Stringent “TABOR” Limit Has Worsened the Problems

TABOR is a Catch-22 -- TABOR counts college tuition - even that paid by out-of-state students - against the overall revenue limits it imposes on the state. That can lead to a ludicrous situation whereby a college increases tuition rates but isn't allowed to spend the added revenue educating the students who paid it.

Colorado Ballot Could be 10 Pages Long -- That's due largely to efforts to provide the state with a "fiscal fix" after struggling for two years in an unprecedented economic downturn.

TABOR Reform and Then What? -- There is a broad consensus at the Capitol that something must be done to modify the 1992 TABOR amendment, if only because its dreaded "ratchet effect" would otherwise lock in the current depressed levels of state spending.

Lawmakers Turn Attention to Fiscal Fixes -- State officials from both parties have said for months that a fix is badly needed for the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment known as TABOR that limits growth in state revenue

Business Needs Strong State Universities -- Colleges or universities should operate outside of the TABOR amendment by taking less than 10 percent of their operating funds from the state, providing them with additional flexibility to raise dollars in troubling financial times.

Real TABOR Reform -- Demands on many state programs - including highways and higher education - grow proportionately as the economy grows. Higher education, for example, is crucial to Colorado's ability to compete in the 21st-century economy. But TABOR has forced continuing cuts.

Two out of Three in Colorado want to Change TABOR -- In a survey conducted by the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver in June 2003 , Coloradoans overwhelmingly supported easing TABOR limitations with 66 percent said they want TABOR modified to restore state services to the levels they were before the current economic downturn.

Budget crisis ahead isn't registering with voters -- Once public policy does start to have a direct impact on someone's life — say, a parent sees a tuition bill triple because state lawmakers can't afford to give CU any more money — that they sit up and pay attention.

Changing TABOR could ease money shortfall -- The Bell Policy Center, The Bighorn Center for Public Policy and others are crafting a ballot initiative that would ask voters to change TABOR.  "We're hopeful that the general assembly would come up with something that's a permanent fix, but we want to be ready with another option," said Mark Cavanaugh, a senior policy analyst at Bighorn.

Voters may bypass legislative logjam -- Douglas Bruce's controversial brainchild grudgingly gives an allowance for population growth and inflation - but not one dime to reflect real growth in the state economy, which runs about 2 percent a year. Because TABOR shrinks the state's share of the economy, Colorado can no longer provide the very services necessary to generate real economic growth - notably, highways and higher education, both of which have been slashed radically under the TABOR knife.

Teck proposal makes state constitution hard to alter -- The Republican majority was too eager to approve tax cuts in the late '90s, and too reluctant to invite the wrath of voters by so much as hinting that TABOR might be part of the problem.

Archives

State of Crisis: Constitutional reforms are needed to assuage Colorado’s fiscal woes by Barry Poulson, The Rocky Mountain News, June 21, 2003

The Big Squeeze: Pressures of TABORand Gallagher amendments imperil integrity of state’s education funding by Cary Kennedy, The Rocky Mountain News, June 21, 2003.

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