As the gates open on round two of the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights debate, it has become increasingly in vogue for TABOR proponents to use Colorado, the native soil of both TABOR and myself, as an exhibit of TABOR's success and popularity. TABOR is an initiative that is designed to strictly cap state revenue through the adaptation of a constitutional amendment. In 1992, Colorado became, and has since remained, the only state in the union to put TABOR into law. Leading the TABOR charge at home is state Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Green Bay.
I am surprised a representative from Green Bay would be so determined to draft a bill that leans so much on Colorado, given that the last time two times Green Bay has provided itself with a Colorado connection, the results were Chronic Wasting Disease and the wasting away of the Packer secondary at the hands of John Elway in Super Bowl XXXII.
The expertise and the evidence that Rep. Lasee utilizes to support his TABOR trip consists of a visit he took and the secondhand accounts of people who have visited Colorado \several times."" Well, if ventures to Colorado qualify one to speak of the facts about TABOR, allow me to draw upon my own 21 years in the Centennial State to compose a veritable treatise on the subject: The Three Laws of TABOR.
1.TABOR offers short-term economic gains at the expense of long-term stability.
In the first decade of its existence TABOR has provided Colorado with a deluge of dilemmas that simply could not have been foreseen in 1992. TABOR mandates that whenever there is a budget surplus, the lion's share of the surplus must be returned to taxpayers and other special interest groups.
When Colorado's economy was growing dramatically in the middle '90s, it was unable to invest or even save any of the revenue surplus. As a result, when the boom times ended, Colorado had no money to fall back on and the state was forced into drastic debt just to keep the government functioning at the most basic level. More than 16,000 of Colorado's poorest citizens were actually removed from the state's Medicare roles.
Currently Colorado's legislature is asking to change the revenue limits that have ""prevented the state from recovering from the recent economic downturn."" TABOR makes it nearly impossible for a state to emerge from an economic recession without draconian cuts to vital government services.
2. TABOR destroys highereducation.
While TABOR has not proved to be very gentle on any of Colorado's state-run programs, it has adopted a take-no-prisoners mentality in regards to higher education. Colorado State University is relying on PBS-like fundraising drives every time it wants to remodel a campus building, and the University of Colorado has publicly declared it is considering becoming a private university by 2010.
UW Professor of Applied Economics Andrew Reschovsky, who has become one of the leading experts on TABOR, wrote that if TABOR had been applied in 1987, public education as a whole would have received a $1.7 billion decrease in funds. If TABOR were to pass in Wisconsin, our recent protests over the current budget cuts would be suddenly rendered paltry, and maybe we would even look back at the Doyle budget cuts as ""the good ol' days"" of the University of Wisconsin.
3. GOP legislators, be careful what you wish for.
On Nov. 2, Democrats in Colorado sat in stunned silence as they watched the election returns come, and thought ""How could this have happened?"" They were not, as one would assume, referring to President Bush's re-election, but to an even more awe-inducing electoral spectacle. For the first time since 1961, Democrats controlled both of Colorado's legislative chambers.
Voters who helped orchestrate this coup explained they had voted for the Democrats because Republicans had failed to deal with Colorado's economic collapse. The GOP legislature and Republican Governor Owens refused to acknowledge the connection between Colorado's staggering economy and TABOR.
Furthermore, TABOR had cut out the biggest reasons people vote Republican-taxes, of course. If low taxes are guaranteed by a constitutional amendment, why would people need a Republican legislature?
Those who are promoting TABOR as the panacea for high taxes for ideological reasons shouldn't ignore the logical consequences of the TABOR laws. TABOR is dangerous. At the slightest downturn it will choke the Badger State's ability to fund and deliver crucial services like health and education. These services are needed most when the economy takes a turn for the worse and if TABOR becomes law we can be assured that Wisconsin will be unable to meet the needs of its people.
After just two years in this state, I already know that neglecting the needs of others would be unnatural for the people of Wisconsin. TABOR is not a plant for Wisconsin soil.
opinion@dailycardinal.com.
