Stop demonizing TABOR
Re: “Polis signs budget with $1.2B in cuts,” April 29 news story
Kudos to Colorado lawmakers for completing a bipartisan budget this year.
If you do the math, you’ll find that the state budget for 2025-26 resulted in about an 8% increase (not accounting for inflation). If the $1.2 billion in “cuts” were included, the increase would have been over 10%!
The constant negative barrage about TABOR by those who feed at the state tax trough is a long-term campaign aimed at the voters’ perception of what’s needed to effectively run the business of the state of Colorado.
Like any real business or personal household, there are needs vs. wants. This is exactly what TABOR was designed to do: prevent unchecked spending increases and force prioritizing. In the eyes of our lawmakers, every aspect of proposed budgets is “critical.” So difficult decisions must be made.
I would love to get an 8% increase in my income every year.
Instead of demonizing TABOR, lawmakers need to come up with ways to increase revenue intake when it’s needed. Special referendums (like Referendum C in 2005-06) require voter approval to keep tax money for a limited time to be used for a specific need (not the general fund). Write better, specific tax proposals, and we’ll give you the money for what’s needed. Colorado voters recognize lipstick on a pig when they see it. We want good roads, health, safety and education too.
TABOR may need to be “tweaked,” but it works.
— Ed Picard, Arvada
Sit-in not bold enough to stop Trump power moves
In the 1930s, workers at American automobile plants staged sit-ins on the factory floor, risking their personal safety from company security guards, their income by being fired during a period of record-high unemployment, and their personal freedom by being arrested by the police, to protest unfairly low wages and unsafe working conditions. Their actions led to wage-and-hour laws, industrial safety laws, and the right to organize.
In the early 1960s, Black people in the South staged sit-ins at lunch counters and stopped sales, risking their personal safety from angry Whites and their freedoms from White-controlled police agencies. Their actions led to the civil rights laws of the 1960s and the idea that public accommodations are open to all members of the public.
On April 27, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic House members staged a sit-in to protest a Republican bill to give tax cuts to billionaires. Their sit-in took place on a Sunday, when the House of Representatives was not in session, outside the Capitol building where any Republican representatives who were there could have easily walked past them. But it sure looked good on social media and will make for great visuals in 15-second political ads in 2026.
When will Congressional Democrats take real steps to find centrist Republicans and stop President Donald Trump’s bold power grab and billionaires’ bold cash grab from the poor before the Democrats become irrelevant?
The way President Trump is acting, there may not be a 2026 election.
— Peter Gross, Englewood
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