Two stories out of Grand Junction–first, KJCT-TV:
Mesa County’s Commissioners are publicly opposing a lawsuit that threatens the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, of TABOR…
The plaintiffs in Kerr vs The State of Colorado say governments must be able to raise money in order to function. They say TABOR keeps governments from properly serving citizens and denies them of a representative democracy, as required by the Colorado and U.S. Constitution.
But Mesa County’s Commissioners say the lawsuit’s claims are baseless…
Tell that to the city of Grand Junction, writes the Sentinel’s Amy Hamilton:
The city is sending millions of dollars of sales and use tax revenue that has been collected over limits set by TABOR – the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights – to pay off the parkway debt. But when the parkway debt is paid off, those excess tax dollars must be refunded to taxpayers. By 2018, those dollars could reach an estimated $8.7 million, city officials said.
In an attempt to continue using the money for future capital projects and avoid a refund situation, Grand Junction City Council members hope to present another TABOR override question during the April 2013 municipal election. City Council members agreed during a recent retreat that the ballot question would identify a specific project or projects that the money would fund.
“We have to be very careful about the ballot language,” Councilman Bennett Boeschenstein said during the early-June retreat. “It has to say with no tax increases while utilizing existing revenues.”
…If the city enters into a refund situation, the bulk of the dollars would go back to commercial businesses in Grand Junction, City Manager Laurie Kadrich said. But figuring out the best way to reimburse everyone could create a nightmarish scenario. City officials half-jokingly said it may be easiest to drop cash from an airplane over Mesa Mall during one of the year’s busiest shopping days. [Pols emphasis]
That sounds much more “functional,” doesn’t it?
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When you don’t expect more…well, there stand for TABOR is no surprise.
why are over-rides and temporary suspensions necessary just to meet basic needs? And why are Rs from Mitch McConnell on down to state and local levels now claiming that tax cuts, including those under Reagan and Bush pay for themselves through increased revenue when even Republican economists such as Andrew Samwick, Chief Economist on Staff of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers 2003-2004as well as Alan D. Viard, Henry Paulson and Ed Lazear for starters, none of them Dems or lefties, say that simply isn’t so? That there is no factual evidence to support that claim?
After all, these R pols are the people who signed the Norquist no tax raises pledge and Norquist doesn’t push tax cuts as a way of increasing Government revenue via economic stimulation. He’s the one who advocates starving government with tax cuts to shrink it to bath tub drowning size. That sure sounds like the purpose is to decrease revenue to serve an ideological, not economic, goal. The Rs can’t have it both ways. And Tabor sucks.
I understand the desire to beat up TABOR every chance you get, but the idea that the city would literally airdrop money on shoppers at the mall is way over the top. This might have been a worthwhile point – not one I agree with – had they not decided to blow it out with stupid hyperbole.