Father of Wisconsin's TABOR: Dick Armey

Hutchins Evacuated to Kuwait

Kraus: TABOR a real threat

'Triumph of Blind Ideology over Responsible Public Policy'

TABOR: R_x for Future Crises?

TABOR Tidbits

Anti-Muni Broadband Bill Signed

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Yet, if TABOR had been enacted the same year former Gov. Tommy Thompson was elected, its effect on the state budget would have been dramatic, Reschovsky found:

                                                           Source: Andrew Reschovsky

Given the level of cuts required to meet TABOR limits and the realities of the state budget, Reschovsky said:

Cuts in aid to K-12 education -- about $3 billion worth -- would have been likely, and that would have meant higher property taxes and reduced educational quality.
Every dollar of Medicaid the state cut would have reduced federal aid by about 60 cents.
The UW System likely would have seen a drastic reduction in funding
  Shared Revenue likely would have been eliminated or severly reduced.

Reschovsky's April 16 presentation to the Marquette University Law School on TABOR, in PDF format,  is located here.

Editorial Comment on TABOR Piles Up

Even some Assembly Republicans are worried about the 'Taxpayers Bill of Rights,' and with good cause, says the Sheboygan Press. TABOR has brought a myriad of problems to Colorado, and Wisconsin's TABOR rewrite "is being done without input from many Republicans, Democrats and other citizens," the newspaper said. Editorial here.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says it will reserve judgment on TABOR until the rewrite is produced. "But it's worth raising a question: Don't voters elect members of the Legislature to make public policy decisions on their behalf - sometimes difficult decisions such as spending cuts and, yes, tax increases? If the answer is no, and such decisions on the tax side go directly to the voters, then perhaps some other changes are due, too. Such as a genuinely part-time Legislature. At, say, half current pay." Editorial here.

So does legislative, other reaction

“We don’t need a taxpayers’ bill of rights to regulate spending by local, county or school officials, because they are responsive to the people who elect them,”  Sen. Michael Ellis ( R-Neenah) told a meeting. “We do need to control the spending of the state legislators … ”

Part of the problem with runaway state spending is that elected officials are too beholden to special interests, and they don't want to cut the umbilical cord by enacting campaign finance reform, Ellis added. Story here

The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights could cripple the University of Wisconsin System, and by the time legislators unveil a final version of their plan, it could be too late to respond, the UW Board of Regents decided. The regents passed a resolution expressing "grave concern" over potential legislative action to impose rigid constitutional formulas to limit state and local spending.

"It's a disaster waiting to happen," Regent Nino Amato said. "There is virtually no version that would be good for the UW," agreed Regent Danae Davis. "I think we should influence the direction before it's delivered to us."

By the time the Legislature settled on a final version of TABOR it would be too late to react, Regent David Walsh said.

"I think we're being played (by the Legislature)," Walsh said. "I want the word to go out that we're not neutral on this, so that at no time can (state lawmakers) say the university is on our side." Story here.

Minnesota TABOR Watch
'Triumph of Blind Ideology over Responsible Public Policy'

Minnetonka (Minn.) City Manager John Gunyou was on a recent panel on Minnesota's proposed Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a device being pushed by  the Minnesota Taxpayers League. A former resident of Colorado, Gunyou's mind was wandering to the Rocky Mountain State when he finally got a word in edgewise between those with whom he shared the podium

"All the opinions about artificial tax and spending limits (both pro and con) were being pontificated by self-anointed experts who had never actually had to make any of those tough decisions. I was also the only one who had seen firsthand what such Draconian restrictions can do to a state. My home state of Colorado once shared Minnesota's proud tradition of fiscal moderation, but is now ranked at the bottom of our country for such values as education and children's health care. The absolute bottom," Gunyou wrote in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

In Colorado, TABOR has "been an unmitigated fiscal disaster, yet the antitax zealots continue to hold Colorado up as the model to be emulated," he wrote. Sound familiar? "Here's one small, but telling, example -- its colleges are now considering 40 percent tuition increases."

Even Gov. Bill Owens, he added, is now calling for a TABOR moratorium to let his state get back on its feet.

"Unfortunately, that'll take another two-thirds vote of the Legislature and voter approval. Colorado's been reduced to managing its daily operations through constitutional amendments," Gunyou wrote.

TABOR, he told his panel discussion, is "the most irresponsible legislation I have ever seen in my 30-year career. It represents the ultimate triumph of blind ideology over responsible public policy."

Gunyou said he made that statement as a fiscal conservative. His column (which may require free registration to access) is here.

TABOR didn't help economy: "Proponents of TABOR like to credit it with stimulating the booming economy of the 1990s and softening the current downturn. But just as TABOR did not cause the economy to sputter, neither is there credible evidence to link its restrictive spending limits to economic growth," Wade Buchanan, president of the Bell Policy Center in Colorado, wrote in the Denver Business Journal last month.

"There is no doubt, however, that TABOR is making the recovery much harder," Buchanan added. "This is because it constrains the ability of services to keep up during the good times, as well as restricts our ability to invest and innovate for the future." Story here.

Tobacco Money Going Up in Smoke? Republican Gov. Bill Owens and some legislators support securitizing Colorado's tobacco settlement as a way of getting out from under the problems TABOR is causing the state budget. But not all legislators agree, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports. See the story here.