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Tag: Fiscal Policy

Senate Bill 135 Raises New Questions About TABOR Limits And Taxpayer Protections
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Senate Bill 135 Raises New Questions About TABOR Limits And Taxpayer Protections

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Claims that Senate Bill 26-135 could permanently eliminate the refund of overcollected revenue under Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) amendment may at first blush sound hyperbolic, but they are not. Let me explain.  Beyond handing progressive legislators a blank check to cover up their own overspending, the new TABOR revenue limit creates a perverse incentive to limit both fiscal transparency and voter consent.  TABOR working just fine  TABOR’s existing formula limits annual growth of a portion of the state budget to a combination of population growth plus inflation.  This formula allows government to reasonably grow and accounts for factors not directly wit...
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Wyoming Positions Itself As Energy Leader For The Mountain West Colorado Pushes Risky Bet
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Wyoming Positions Itself As Energy Leader For The Mountain West Colorado Pushes Risky Bet

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, Complete Colorado Years ago, I interviewed a Canadian health-care broker whose job was helping his countrymen escape their own failing system. When their “free” health care turned into “free to wait until you die,” he’d save his clients by routing them to doctors in the U.S. who’d accept cash and rescue their lives. I asked him what advice he had for Americans. His answer terrified me. “I hope the U.S. won’t do what we’ve done with health care,” he said. I thought his reasoning was that he didn’t want to see Americans suffer and die because of medical socialism. But that wasn’t it. He said, “Because if you do, we’ll have nowhere to escape to.” That stuck with me. We are Canada’s health care lifeboat. Every bad sy...
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Colorado Lawmakers Weigh $500 Million In Cuts As $1.5 Billion Deficit Looms
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Lawmakers Weigh $500 Million In Cuts As $1.5 Billion Deficit Looms

By: Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee is working through a list Wednesday of about 150 suggestions to cut as much as $1.5 billion in general fund dollars out of next year’s budget. The largest on the list prepared by JBC staff is $198 million in cuts to the funding for the annual senior and disabled veterans homestead exemption. Funding for the homestead exemption has to come out of general fund dollars in the 2026-27 budget because the state does not have a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights surplus that would normally cover that cost. The other side of the issue is Gov. Jared Polis’ support for a proposal to allow Pinnacol Assurance to privatize, with the hopes that half of the funds Pinnacol would pay the state as a result ...
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America’s debt reality: Interest payments now eating 15.5% of federal revenue
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ContraPloy, Approved, Commentary, National

America’s debt reality: Interest payments now eating 15.5% of federal revenue

By Jim Swift | Commentary, ContraPloy (Various & Sundry section) The federal debt is big. But how big is too big? At time of this writing, it’s $38 trillion and change. Is that too much? Who knows? The only practical way to understand it is to compare it with another number. A popular approach is to compare it with Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These days, the national debt is around 119% of GDP. That seems bad. Actually it’s worse, because it’s comparing the money the federal government borrowed with the goods and services everyone produces. If we compare the national debt to just the revenue the federal government collects, it’s more like 600%. But is it too much? Who knows? Another approach is to compare it with the population of the country, which is around 343 million sou...
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Denver $178M Homeless Initiative Faces Scrutiny Over Missing Funds
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DENVER7, Approved, Local

Denver $178M Homeless Initiative Faces Scrutiny Over Missing Funds

By Tyler Melito | Denver7 In a report released Thursday, the City of Denver's auditor's office said the initiative by the mayor had underreported expenses and was "insufficiently planned." DENVER - The Denver mayor’s office and the city auditor’s office are in sharp disagreement over the findings of the latest audit on All In Mile High, the city’s homelessness initiative. Mayor Mike Johnston launched All In Mile High in 2024 with the ambitious goal of ending unsheltered homelessness in Denver by the end of 2026. The report released Thursday by City Auditor Timothy O'Brien's office credits the program with reducing unsheltered homelessness by 45% since 2023 — but that same report sharply criticizes the initiative’s financial transparency, planning and equi...
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Colorado’s School Funding TABOR Measure Hides a Long-Term Legislative Slush Fund
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s School Funding TABOR Measure Hides a Long-Term Legislative Slush Fund

Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The CPR article below details how SB26-135 (linked second below), the bill that, among other things, will put a question on the ballot allowing people to decide whether or not to let the state keep tax revenues above the TABOR cap, passed out of its first committee last week. I want to tee up an important thing to note about this bill by using a quote from one of the bill's sponsors Senator Kipp. “The Colorado Constitution requires voter approval to make any adjustments to TABOR, which is why lawmakers have to go to the ballot to advance the plan, according to Democratic Sen. Cathy Kipp, another main sponsor. ‘This bill does exactly what TABOR tells us to do,’ Kipp said. ‘We are going to the people of Colorado and saying, “...
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Colorado Health Initiative For Immigrants Exceeds Fiscal Projections By Over 600%
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The Daily Caller, Approved, State

Colorado Health Initiative For Immigrants Exceeds Fiscal Projections By Over 600%

By Harold Hutchison | The Daily Caller A program to provide health care for pregnant illegal immigrants in Colorado is costing the state over seven times its budget projections since it was enacted, the Colorado Sun reported. The Covering All Coloradans program, which was enacted in 2022, gave health care benefits to illegal immigrants who would otherwise have qualified for Medicaid, according to the Sun. The program was expected to cost the state $14.7 million dollars but its cost has instead ballooned to over $104 million. The program’s launch was secured in 2025 when money was appropriated by the state legislature. The state is now facing a $1 billion budget shortfall, primarily due to programs like Covering All Coloradans, the Sun...
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Colorado Budget Gap Nears $1.5B As Revenue Forecast Slides
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Budget Gap Nears $1.5B As Revenue Forecast Slides

By: Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette The latest revenue forecasts from economists in both the governor’s office and the Colorado legislature show that the state’s budget predicament has worsened — by hundreds of millions of dollars more. That, in turn, means cuts programs and services in next year’s fiscal budget will go much deeper. The state’s fiscal predicament also means no refunds for Colorado residents. Economists with the Legislative Council downgraded the forecast for the 2026-27 fiscal year by another $643 million, bringing the total shortfall to nearly $1.5 billion. What’s driving the downgrade? General fund revenues — dollars that come from tax collections for individual and corporate income tax, and sales and use taxes — came in lower for fi...
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Colorado’s EMS savings promise: Too soon to celebrate
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s EMS savings promise: Too soon to celebrate

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I thought the headline of the KUNC article below was quite provocative. The title is, in full, "Ambulance services would get funding boost while saving Colorado millions under new bill." Bit too certain, I thought. Not so much the first part, but the latter bit: "...while saving Colorado millions." First, to the bill. The KUNC article is linked first below, with the bill underneath it. Screenshots 1a and 1b are the summary of what the bill does from its fiscal note. Skipping a lot of detail the bill allows EMS workers to do more treatments "in place", where and when they are called out or encounter someone needing medical attention in lieu of scooping everyone up and taking them to the ...
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Framed as education, but tied to TABOR: Measure to keep surplus revenue advances
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Framed as education, but tied to TABOR: Measure to keep surplus revenue advances

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s fight over spending limits is back at the Capitol, and this time it could end up in front of voters. The Senate Finance Committee voted 6–3 on March 12 to advance SB26-135, teeing up a 2026 vote on whether the state can keep revenue above the TABOR cap instead of sending it back as refunds. It comes down to a basic question: should that extra revenue go back to taxpayers, or stay with the state? What follows is less straightforward. How the bill works The proposal does not rewrite TABOR itself. Instead, it puts that decision to voters—whether to allow the state to keep and spend money that would otherwise be refunded. If voters sign off, the state could retain revenue above the cap, up to an amount ...
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