OPINION: TABOR can't stop Obama windfall
City Council members should be commended for coming to an informal consensus Monday to brush aside an outrageous committee recommendation to ask voters to repeal the Colorado Springs Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. Instead of moving forward with the recommendation by the council's Sustainable Funding Committee, city leaders decided to draft ballot language that would revise TABOR. Some kind of minor revision might be fine, but it's probably best to leave the law just as it is.
The committee had recommended an outright repeal, arguing the city's TABOR is merely duplication of the state Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. Both laws require voter approval of tax and spending increases.
Repeal advocates said the local spending limit could impede the city's ability to use federal funds from President-elect Barack Obama's proposed economic stimulus package. Repealing TABOR would not harm taxpayers, they argued, because the state law gives them nearly identical protections.
Nice try, but anyone who reads our city's TABOR knows that it won't prevent City Hall from receiving and spending even the most grotesque amounts of federal largess.
TABOR specifically exempts from spending limits "federal funds" received by the city.
The argument that we don't need a city TABOR because we're protected by state law is absurd. The majority of state politicians loathe Colorado's TABOR, as do nearly all city, county and school administrators. It's a law that empowers citizens, so politicians and bureaucrats often try to destroy it. A failed amendment on last November's ballot, marketed by Colorado's speaker of the House at the time as an education savings plan, would have gutted TABOR. In his recent State of the State speech, Gov. Bill Ritter targeted TABOR, saying: "There is an opportunity here - a chance to address TABOR and the constitutional and statutory straitjacket that makes modern, sensible and value-based budgeting an impossibility." Previously, Ritter tried to neuter TABOR with an administrative move that was smacked down by a judge.
The council's rejection of a TABOR repeal proposal came after a coalition of taxpayer advocates - including Local Liberty Action, Americans for Prosperity, the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, and others - defended TABOR and recommended an adjustment rather than repeal.
It's possible some minor adjustment could improve TABOR, but voters should remain skeptical until convinced it's in their best interest. Sean Paige, who leads Local Liberty Action, said some city leaders are concerned about a phrase in the city's TABOR that defines a city enterprise as an entity that receives no more than 25 percent of its funding from government sources. That means an enterprise - such as Memorial Hospital, Colorado Springs Utilities, or a city golf course - could lose enterprise status if it receives so much funding from the stimulus package that its percentage of government funding exceeds 25 percent of its total revenue.
Opponents of the TABOR repeal have put forth a recommendation for a ballot question that says: "Shall the city charter be amended to exempt federal funds, including those going to city enterprises, from being counted as part of the spending limitations formula specified in the city Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, as well as for the purposes of determining enterprise status."
It's seems a reasonable compromise, if one is needed at all. Taxpayers hold all the cards, however, and they may not want federal money spread among hospitals, golf courses, our local utility, and the Stormwater Enterprise. They may not want a subsidy for Memorial Hospital, giving it an unfair advantage over Penrose-St. Francis. Voters may want to focus federal stimulus funds on core city services such as road and bridge repair, fire protection and law enforcement. If so, they'll leave TABOR just as it is. As TABOR reads today, it would do nothing to stop City Hall from receiving massive federal handouts.
