Aurora – Gov. Bill Owens continued on Thursday to stump in support of November’s budget-reform measures, this time making his pitch to the Aurora Chamber of Commerce.
Owens has become more visible on the campaign trail this week. Wednesday, he spoke at a Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce event.
Today, he is scheduled to speak at another campaign event at Children’s Hospital with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and University of Colorado president Hank Brown.
In his speeches, Owens has described the state’s budget problems. After state revenue dropped more than 15 percent several years ago, the state cut more than $1 billion in spending. But the revenue limits of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, prevent the revenue from returning to prerecession levels.
Referendum C asks voters if the state can keep an estimated $3.6 billion more over the next five years than TABOR’s limits would otherwise allow.
Referendum D asks whether the state can take out $2.1 billion in loans to pay for road, school and other improvements.
On Thursday, Owens called the measures “the most significant challenge I’ve seen on the ballot in a decade.”
“I am convinced that if we don’t pass Referendum C … then in fact this debate’s going to simply go on forever in Colorado until Colorado chooses to fix the structural challenge we face,” he said. “Because if we don’t (pass the measures), TABOR and Colorado’s budget challenge will simply be national news all the time until we fix it.”
As other states recover from the recession, only Colorado will continue “cutting into, really, the very fiber of what it takes to make a state great,” he said.
Hickenlooper, Denver’s first-term mayor and a Democrat, said he looks forward to joining Republicans Owens and Brown today. He has more than 50 such speaking engagements scheduled into the fall, he said.
“Just like any business, after you endure a recession, you want to be able to bounce back,” he said.
Staff writer Jim Hughes contributed to this report.
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at 303-820-1633 or cfrates@denverpost.com.
