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TABOR - Bad for Families, Bad for Business, Bad for States

By Anna Burger, Secretary-Treasurer, SEIU

As dozens of states begin to consider gimmicks like TABOR – the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights – it is instructive to take a careful look at the Colorado experience where the policy wreaked economic havoc for thirteen years until voters finally put a stop to it last fall.

Added to the Colorado state constitution in 1992, TABOR created a crisis by establishing an arbitrary and rigid spending cap that restricted budget growth to a formula based on population growth and inflation.

TABOR systematically undermined economic development and forced unimaginable cuts in health care, education, vitally needed services for children and seniors, and maintenance for basic infrastructure.

The somber statistics spoke for themselves. Thanks to TABOR, Colorado ranked dead last in child vaccinations and the number of low-income children lacking health insurance. The picture for education was similarly bleak. The state plummeted to second to last in K-12 spending and meanwhile, in-state tuition at its colleges and universities went up by 21 percent.

This dramatic decline in the state’s economic infrastructure was devastating for business as well which prompted business leaders to join the fight to suspend TABOR. If the voters hadn’t stepped in to stop its destructive effects, the problems would have only continued to get worse. Within the next decade, TABOR would have forced the state to end funding for higher education, causing community colleges to close and public university tuition to soar out of reach for many Colorado families.

From Colorado’s TABOR debacle comes an important lesson: voters want their state government to invest in the right priorities that are good for families, good for business and good for their communities.

That means improving the services everyone depends on like schools for our children, health care for the elderly in nursing homes, and infrastructure needs such as highways, roads and bridges.

Incredibly, despite clear proof of TABOR’s failure, some state legislatures have already introduced similar policies (although sometimes under a different name.)

Our hope is that after learning more about the Colorado experience, most state legislators will reject any policy like TABOR that would cripple its ability to provide critical services. Because Americans cannot afford the consequences.