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Colorado Senate Panel Advances Bill To Redirect TABOR Refunds
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Senate Panel Advances Bill To Redirect TABOR Refunds

By: Savana Kascak | Complete Colorado DENVER–Couched as a state education funding effort, legislation to siphon off overcollected revenue that would otherwise be refunded to Colorado taxpayers passed out of a Democrat-controlled Senate committee on Thursday. Senate Bill 26-135, “State Public K-12 Education Funding,” refers a question to Colorado’s November ballot to increase K-12 education funding by 2% annually for the next ten years. According to the bill, the money is intended to go towards teacher pay increases and retention, lowering class sizes, and technical career programs. Along with raising education appropriations, the bill allows the state to keep and spend excess revenue collected above the limitations in the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). ...
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Lawmakers Attempt End Run Around TABOR With New Tax Bills
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Lawmakers Attempt End Run Around TABOR With New Tax Bills

By: Mike Rosen | Complete Colorado The governor and progressive Democrats that dominate the state legislature and every statewide office in Colorado have been masterful ― if not ethical and honest ― in devising devious schemes to circumvent the TABOR amendment in the Colorado Constitution.  That’s the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, passed by a 1992 voter-initiated ballot measure that bypassed the legislature. It limited government spending and barred the legislature from increasing taxes or imposing new ones without the consent of the voters. Democrats have always despised TABOR. Their favorite ploys have included misrepresenting taxes as “fees” and funding spending programs through tax credits. Because those credits reduce government revenues, they’re the equivalent of...
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Critics Warn Democrat Plan Would Eliminate TABOR Refunds For A Decade
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Critics Warn Democrat Plan Would Eliminate TABOR Refunds For A Decade

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Colorado voters could decide this fall whether billions of dollars that would otherwise be returned as refunds under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights should instead go to public schools under a ballot measure unveiled Thursday by Democrats. Supporters say the proposal would address chronic underfunding in K-12 education, while critics argue it takes money away from taxpayers and amounts to sidestepping the state’s constitutional spending limits. Supporters have insisted that schools are underfunded to the tune of billions of dollars, while one study says revenue and spending by schools have significantly grown in the last few years, with a noticeable shift toward non-instructional spending. Under the proposed ballot measure, the am...
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Democrats Push Plan to Eliminate TABOR Refunds For The Next 10 Years
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Democrats Push Plan to Eliminate TABOR Refunds For The Next 10 Years

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Colorado voters could decide this fall whether billions of dollars that would otherwise be returned as refunds under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights should instead go to public schools under a ballot measure unveiled Thursday by Democrats. Supporters say the proposal would address chronic underfunding in K-12 education, while critics argue it takes money away from taxpayers and amounts to sidestepping the state’s constitutional spending limits. Supporters have insisted that schools are underfunded to the tune of billions of dollars, while one study says revenue and spending by schools have significantly grown in the last few years, with a noticeable shift toward non-instructional spending. Under the proposed ballot measure, the am...
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Federal Reimbursement Model of ‘Perverse Incentives’ Fuels Colorado Medicaid Expansion
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Federal Reimbursement Model of ‘Perverse Incentives’ Fuels Colorado Medicaid Expansion

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Colorado’s ongoing budget-gap struggles are the predictable result of structural problems with Medicaid.  Paragon Health Institute, a non-partisan research institute, recently published a new report, Preserve and Improve Medicaid, which explains the program’s inherent challenges and how states such as Colorado can take advantage of One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) reforms to improve outcomes.  However, it remains ultimately up to Colorado legislators to address the program’s systemic issues.  Medicaid’s ‘perverse incentives’ As economist Linda Gorman recently explained, the rapid 2010 expansion of Medicaid did not produce large gains in physical health, suggesting that the new expansion ...
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Colorado Lawmakers Face Tough Choices As Medicaid Drives Increased Spending
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Lawmakers Face Tough Choices As Medicaid Drives Increased Spending

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics This week, the state Senate is reviewing revisions to the 2025–26 state budget, which has been reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars in each round of cuts. But the bottom line is that, because of Medicaid costs, the state will spend more in 2025-26 than lawmakers approved in the 2025 session. Last week, the 29 bills in the supplemental package were approved by the House, with most passing with broad support. That didn’t mean all of them did: bills changing the budgets for the departments of state, treasury, health care policy and financing, personnel, public health and environment and higher ed all passed largely along party lines. A supplemental for the Department of Corrections, which increased its budget by $29...
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CMU student leaders press governor hopefuls on taxes, energy and rural control
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

CMU student leaders press governor hopefuls on taxes, energy and rural control

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice TPUSA chapter leaders from Colorado Mesa University opened Monday night’s gubernatorial forum with a question more typical of a legislative hearing than a campaign rally. Instead of easing into the forum, they went straight to TABOR. “How would you approach balancing Colorado’s budget while complying with TABOR? And what are your priorities when it comes to taxes, refunds and state spending during periods of surplus and economic stagnation?” Six candidates were at the forum that evening. Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer told the crowd she almost didn’t make the trip, saying she rearranged her Joint Budget Committee schedule and decided to “head on over to Grand Junction” when the weather held. Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs share...
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Democrat TABOR Revenue Reclassification Plan Draws Scrutiny at State Capitol
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Democrat TABOR Revenue Reclassification Plan Draws Scrutiny at State Capitol

By Nash Herman | Complete Colorado Similar to last year’s Senate Bill 173, legislative Democrats are returning this year with another effort to bypass Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) by reclassifying certain state revenue streams.  While Senate Bill 26-042 may have some plausibility under specific TABOR terms, it raises broader concerns about the runaway growth of Colorado’s state government, and the mechanisms legislators pursue to evade voter consent over taxation.  What the bill does  While TABOR generally limits the growth of a portion of state revenue to a modest formula of population growth plus inflation, it allows for certain carve outs such as “damage awards” and “collections for another government.”  ...
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A ‘county average’ for pretzels: Colorado’s next price-control creep
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

A ‘county average’ for pretzels: Colorado’s next price-control creep

By Rep. Ken DeGraaf | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice HB26-1012“A PERSON IS PRESUMED TO BE ENGAGED IN AN UNFAIR OR DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICE IF THE PERSON CHARGES A CAPTIVE CONSUMER A PRICE FOR AN ANCILLARY GOOD OR SERVICE THAT IS MORE THAN THE AVERAGE PRICE OFFERED FOR A COMPARABLE GOOD OR SERVICE SOLD IN THE COUNTY IN WHICH THE CAPTIVE CONSUMER PURCHASES THE ANCILLARY GOOD OR SERVICE” Welcome to bill #12 of over 700 to be considered and passed into law in 120 days of session. The Democrats keep piling on regulations that jack up costs for everyone, then act like the fix is squeezing vendors harder—instead of slashing the taxes, fees, and mandates they've created. They could drop sales taxes on basics, cut absurd airport fees, or repeal rules that inflate...
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Colorado’s Original Constitution Was a Bold Blueprint for Liberty
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s Original Constitution Was a Bold Blueprint for Liberty

By Rob Natelson | Commentary., Complete Colorado This year marks the 150th anniversary of the original Colorado Constitution, which in a recent column I called “an extraordinary testament to human freedom.” The state constitution remains in effect today, but in a mangled form far less protective of liberty than when it became effective on August 1, 1876. As my prior column pointed out, the document imposed severe limitations on taxes, spending, and state debt—limitations far more restrictive than those currently mandated by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). The Colorado founders’ dedication to freedom also appeared in their constitution’s bill of rights. The U.S. Bill of Rights consists only of ten relatively short amendments; the original Colo...
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