Kerber: Aren’t we taxed enough already?

By Dave Kerber | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

A major theme in the 2026 elections is the issue of affordability. Putting aside for a moment whether a government can ever mandate that things become “affordable,” while the political parties throw bombs at each other and bemoan the cost of gasoline and hamburger, Colorado governmental entities are engaged in a tax-increase feeding frenzy to make life more … well, unaffordable.

In Proposition NN, the state legislature seeks to eventually raise taxes by $5 billion per year. This is done by doing away with a major component of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). TABOR has essentially two parts. The first is that the legislature can’t raise taxes without a vote of the people. The second puts a limit on the amount of money that the legislature can collect each year. Essentially, TABOR put the legislature on a diet. If the state overcollects taxes above the diet, it must return them to the people. These are referred to as TABOR refunds, and Colorado has been overcollecting a lot lately.

Now don’t start to feel bad about the state government. We give it a raise each year for inflation and population growth and can even let it keep the money that it overcollects if we want to. This is what NN is: a request from the state to keep more of our money for itself. It would allow the government to break its diet and spend on anything it wants. Proposition NN claims that it is for education and teachers, but that just means that it can spend more from the general fund on other things. Money is fungible. It is a tax increase, pure and simple.

Proposition 137 is a smaller attack on our wallets, “only” $175 million. It plays the same game, in which money from sales taxes for sporting goods, which previously had gone into the general fund to be spent on conservation, wildfire risk mitigation, and outdoor recreation programs, would now go to a “special fund” that would be spent on … conservation, wildfire risk mitigation, and outdoor recreation programs. Don’t be confused as to what the proposition claims the money will be spent on. It is just a tax increase, more money for the government, less money for us.

Amendment 87, the graduated income tax proposal, seeks to convert our flat tax system to a progressive tax system on an argument of “fairness.” The proposal claims to raise taxes on the greedy rich while the rest of us get a small couple-hundred-dollar cut next year. If this measure were just a pure reallocation of tax burden, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, that would be one argument for socialism, but it is not. The rates proposed end up kicking an additional $2 billion out of the economy and into the government. Of course, the proposal also shields that revenue from the TABOR limits.

But it does more. Since the tax brackets are not indexed, each year as our income goes up in order to stay even with inflation, the state’s share goes up as we move into higher tax brackets. This is a $2 billion tax increase now and continuing tax increases (without a vote) into the future.

The government could have helped us with this affordability problem by not pushing these three measures and taking so much, but as we go down the ballot, it gets worse.

In this time of economic uncertainty, the government has decided to start a new railroad going from Fort Collins to Pueblo called Front Range Rail or “CoCo.” But since not enough people will use it to pay for its costs, it would require an additional 0.33% sales tax increase on everything we buy. This is projected to squeeze $295 million out of us next year and increase year after year as the costs of goods rise.

It appears that the only people to benefit would be Front Range Rail employees operating nearly empty railcars, businesses that sell railcars and equipment, transportation consultants, and marketing teams trying to sell us on what a good deal it is for us to pay for the rides of other people who have the money to pay for Broncos tickets but don’t want to pay for parking.

And still we are not finished with the attack of governmental entities on our pocketbooks. Moving down the ballot long after we have lost interest, there are counties, municipalities, school boards, fire districts, metropolitan districts, sanitation districts, and conservancy districts, all of which, instead of tightening their belts and living within their means, have their hands out to claw as much money for themselves as they can.

Along the Front Range, the Denver School Board is asking for $44 million for another mill levy override to add to property taxes. The Jefferson County School Board wants $133 million, Littleton $10 million, and Douglas County $54 million, all while serving fewer students.

Larimer County wants a 0.3% sales tax increase. Aurora has three separate sales tax measures totaling 0.325%, Centennial wants 1%, Edgewater 0.5%, Lakewood 0.5%, Sheridan 0.5%, and Wheat Ridge 1%.

Then there are the fire districts: Bennett, Adams County, West Metro, Golden Gate, Arvada, Evergreen, Conifer, Larkspur, Estes Valley, and Allenspark, all asking for sales or property tax increases.

Then there are lodging tax increases and special district tax increases for a variety of claimed essential uses. Not to be left out, Boulder County is proposing a 2.579-mill property tax increase ($30,000,000) for child care, and the City of Boulder wants a straight $4,000 a year tax, increasing each year for inflation, on second homes that aren’t occupied for 183 days or houses that can’t be sold quickly enough to get out of high-tax, unaffordable Boulder.

We are under attack by our representatives who are supposed to be looking after our financial interests. Tax increases are piecemealed so that individually they might not seem so bad, but Lakewood, for example, is facing a proposed 0.5% sales tax increase, a 0.75% West Metro Fire tax increase, and a 0.33% Front Range Railroad (CoCo) tax increase for a total of a 1.58% sales tax plus a mill levy increase to fund the $133 million for Jeffco Schools. In Wheat Ridge, it is over 2% plus the schools, and afterwards when the votes have been counted, the people ask, why is my life so unaffordable? A big place to look is at your ballot.

The people we send to our legislature, school boards, or any other governmental entities have been putting the interests of their organizations and the special interests that lobby them over the interests of the people who elected them. What we are seeing is a major money grab by governmental entities that spend more time and energy on how to raise our taxes than how to root out inefficiencies and fraud. It’s past time that governmental entities make hard decisions on their budgets and tell the special interests that they don’t have the money to support their programs.

Aren’t we taxed enough already? I would suggest we are.

Dave is a retired businessman and has served on the Greenwood Village City Council as a council member and Mayor Pro Tem for 16 years.

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.