An equine sculpture the size of a Clydesdale stands on Colorado Boulevard north of Interstate 70.
“Vote No on Ref. C!” screams a sign draped over its massive flanks.
“Stop the Trojan Horse Tax Increase! Forever!”
Carved from wood and painted brown, this latter-day Trojan Horse cuts a fine figure. Unfortunately, the reasoning behind it rings as hollow as its ancient namesake.
The Colorado Club for Growth displayed the horse statue to convince people to vote against temporary changes in TABOR, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
“The forces of Big Government, the education establishment and liberals are pooling their efforts to tear the heart out of TABOR and raise the floodgates of higher taxes and more spending,” warns the Club for Growth website.
That’s an interesting take on Colorado’s obligation to educate its children, treat its sick and fill its potholes.
Technically, Referendum C asks voters for permission to keep $3.1 billion in revenue over the next five years. Without that permission, TABOR requires the money to be refunded to citizens and as many as 19 categories of special interests.
But the real decision Coloradans will make in November is what kind of state they want.
Are they willing to trade a decent public college system to get a few hundred extra bucks over the next five years?
Are they willing to let kids and handicapped people suffer so they can go out to dinner a couple of dozen more times?
Are they willing to bounce along unrepaired roads or sit in traffic jams to collect what amounts to a month or two worth of car payments?
When groups like the Colorado Club for Growth, the Independence Institute and anti-tax ideologues in Washington claim TABOR did nothing to inflame the state’s recent recession, they call a conservative Republican governor, a bipartisan coalition of legislators and a diverse group of business leaders liars.
The state is not flush with money, said Gov. Bill Owens. More service cuts will not make state government more efficient, Owens added.
“I supported TABOR from the beginning,” the governor explained in a telephone interview as he lobbied for Referendum C on Colorado’s Western Slope. “My reputation with conservatives is being damaged by doing this. If I could have avoided it, I would have.”
Fixing TABOR, Owens continued, “is the opposite of a Trojan Horse. It’s transparent.”
Transparent enough, certainly, for citizens to decide what government services they now receive that they don’t want.
In 2002, TABOR spending limits helped keep Colorado from buying vaccines to inoculate poor kids against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.
Is that the trade-off Coloradans intended when they approved TABOR in 1992?
The question needs individual answers, because Referendum C didn’t come from “Big Government.”
It came from the diversion of tens of millions in transportation appropriations to balance the budget.
It came from the elimination of $20 million in school capital construction.
It came from $149.4 million in cuts to higher education.
It came by trimming child welfare services $23.4 million and services to the developmentally disabled $9.5 million.
It came from cutting prison supervision and administration $24 million while prison populations rose.
It came from a voter-approved constitutional commitment to automatically raise spending for kindergarten-through- 12th-grade education each year.
None of that stems from “efforts to raise the floodgates of higher taxes.” The conspiracy of Referendum C will fix leaky roofs. It will prevent the state from selling public buildings and renting them back to generate cash.
If you want to know what’s lurking inside the Trojan Horse of TABOR reform, here’s the big secret:
There’s nothing left to hide.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
