Focus--Feature Articles

TABOR and How It Affects You

TABOR has been in effect for thirteen years. Do you know how it affects you and the people around you? TABOR is perhaps the best thing that has happened to us, as a state, financially, in the past ten years. The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is a really good thing, because it limits government spending and gives us more power. Unfortunately, it is being threatened by Referenda C and D. If it is put on “time out”, it may never be allowed to come out of the corner after the experimental five years for Refs C and D are up. TABOR, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, was put into effect in 1992. The whole purpose it has served has been to restrain the government concerning the finances of Colorado. TABOR restrains the government spending so that the people of Colorado can have their say in what happens to their tax money. It limits taxes and makes the government return any money made in surplus revenue above the limit TABOR has set. That means less money is taken away from us, and sometimes we even get tax returns! If that’s not enough, we are also given the right to vote on tax increases and government debt. If we decide that the government should spend its money on something else, so be it! The government does not run itself-the people run the government. It’s called a republic-a nation created by the people for the people. Now, why all the fuss about TABOR and Referenda C and D? Referenda C and D are threatening to destroy TABOR by making it ineffective. It will still exist, but the government will have been able to sidestep it this way and that. Supporters of Referenda C and D say that TABOR will simply be put on a “time out”, but those who know anything about government will see that TABOR will be effectively eliminated for all intensive purposes. Now, if you understand why TABOR is so great, you will see that Referenda C and D are not so great. We want to have power over government spending. Remember: this is a republic, which means it is a country created by the people, for the people.