Colorado Ballot Measures LL and MM Risk Wasting More Taxpayer Dollars

By The Gazette Editorial Board | Commentary, The Denver Gazette

As if Coloradans needed another reason to vote against the tax hikes of Propositions LL and MM — placed on this November’s ballot by our free-spending legislature — a new analysis released this week provides as good an argument as any.

The Common Sense Institute’s latest report on the subject reminds us the fundamentally misguided state program that LL and MM are intended to bail out — “Healthy School Meals For All” — is a money pit. Adding tax dollars to it is like pouring water on quicksand.

That harsh reality was inevitable from the time the free food giveaway was created in 2022. That was the year ruling Democrats at the legislature evidently got bored with providing free meals only to the low-income children who actually needed them in Colorado’s public schools — and decided to feed all kids instead. Nearly a million of them daily. No matter what it cost.

So, it asked voters to ding the state’s upper-income households to pay for free school meals for all kids regardless of household income. Yes, even for kids from the same well-off homes that were taxed extra to fund the program. Whether it was the allure of soak-the-rich politics or simply the universal appeal of feeding kids — voters obliged.

What happened next shocked absolutely no one except, perhaps, the members of the legislature who had authored the program: It ran out of money. In a big way.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE DENVER GAZETTE

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.