“None of us is as dumb as all of us.”
-Dispair.com
I thought I would bump this with results from yesterday’s election. A rather large percentage of people in this thread seemed skeptical of the idea that a population would willingly tax itself for any reason.
Colorado Springs had two measures:
Raising the sales tax by 0.62% for 5 years to pay for road repairs.
Allowing the city to keep about $2.1 million in excess revenue to pay for trail system repairs.
The state had one state-wide measure, asking to retain revenue from the sale of marijuana.
All three passed. The least-successful of the three passed by a 2-1 margin.
TABOR is a good thing. It forces the government to explain to the citizens why the government wants the money, and what it will be used for. And when the government treats the citizens respectfully, the citizens are quite likely to respond in kind.
How does the government fund unpopular or unsexy things (drug rehab, say, or repairs to the prisons or jails)? How does the government fund complex things or those that are hard to explain? I can expect the legislators to take the time to carefully consider a budget, spending plan or finance proposal, but is the average voter going to take the time to do so?
As a relative newcomer to Colorado (I’ve been here 12 years now), I was very skeptical of TABOR when I learned about it. But over the years I have seen the effect that Flyer mentions. Voters really ARE aware of the issues - at least those issues concerning tax spending - and much more so than in my previous state. I think the effect deepens the more local the issue is. I never saw the amount of knowledge of local issues back home as I have since I’ve lived here. That part impresses me.
But I also agree that there are dangers to conducting government in this way. There are people who will vote ‘no’ on everything, simply because whatever it is could raise taxes. They don’t care if the iniative has value or not, they just hear ‘taxes’ and tune out the rest of the message.
Not really. TABOR, as you’ve described it*, is a mechanism for ratcheting the size of that budget downward over time. A balanced budget requirement doesn’t do that.
*Specifically, the sentence beginning with “However” under point #2 in your description. As Jimmy Breslin once wrote, “this is a word which has killed more people than field artillery. It is listed as a conjunction, but it should be assigned a number, like .155.”