Thursday, February 23, 2006

Guest Opinion: Taxpayers Bill of Rights working in Colorado

BILL OWENS

Tucson Citizen

Fourteen years ago, I supported the Tax- payers Bill of Rights - and I still support it today.

When it passed in 1992, it was a revolutionary measure in Colorado to ensure that the state's budget didn't grow too big or too fast. It worked then, and it still works today.

In her Jan. 31 column ("Colo. found danger of skating on bill's too thin ice"), transplanted Colorado columnist Billie Stanton lectured Arizonans about the supposedly dire consequences of forcing legislators to live within a budget.

As one who continues to live in Colorado, I can tell you TABOR has served the state well, and I am glad to see other states considering such measures.

By controlling budget growth during the flush years of the 1990s, TABOR helped ensure that increases in Colorado government would be moderate and reasonable.

It was the national and state recession after 9/11 - not TABOR - that caused state funding to wither over the past three years.

In fact, TABOR is one of the primary reasons Colorado weathered the recession better than many other states. So when available revenue actually dropped (16 percent in fiscal 2001 and 2002), the overall impact was not nearly as bad as in many other states.

As Colorado voters showed in November, they are perfectly capable of sorting out the real facts.

Contrary to some beliefs, the voters did not suspend TABOR. When they supported Referendum C last fall, they simply used the provisions contained in TABOR to fix a problem commonly referred to as the "ratchet effect."

I'm told the TABOR proposal in Arizona already addresses that issue. Arizona proponents have learned from the Colorado experience and have taken appropriate steps.

By passing Referendum C, Colorado voters chose to allow the state to retain TABOR revenues for five years to climb out of the financial hole caused by the recession. In the sixth year, TABOR refunds resume.

When Stanton writes that Colorado suffered "13 years of devastation," you'd think the state had been leveled by a hurricane.

Hardly.

Employment in Colorado this year is expected to reach an all-time high. Colorado's jobs-friendly policies have made us a national leader in so many ways. We're first in the nation in concentration of high-tech workers and fourth in aerospace employment.

Denver is the nation's fifth-largest financial-services center. In Arizona, Goldwater Institute economists have recommended a TABOR that could realize similar strengths for the Arizona economy.

As a fiscal conservative and TABOR supporter, I can assure you that all taxpayer protections originally contained in TABOR in Colorado remain with the passage of Referendum C. The TABOR provision in our state Constitution still:

• Protects the requirement for voter approval of tax increases.

• Protects spending limits to control the growth of government.

• Protects the right of voters to future tax refunds.

The question is: If families and businesses have to live within a budget, why shouldn't a state?

It's a question the voters should be allowed to decide for themselves.

Bill Owens is governor of Colorado.