Opponents of the measures on next week’s ballot to relax state spending limits cut a new radio ad targeting Republicans on Wednesday and issued a paper on irresponsible state spending.
Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Owens, a proponent of the measures, told road builders and other transportation officials that critical highway construction will be shelved for the foreseeable future if state voters reject Referendums C and D on Tuesday.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman, a vocal opponent of the measures, made a radio ad that starts airing today arguing that there are better ways to solve the state’s budget woes.
His campaign manager, Dick Leggitt, said recent polling shows the race in a dead heat. Republicans are the swing vote because their party is split over the measures.
“The Republicans are the ones that are torn about what the right thing to do is,” Leggitt said.
The radio spot will air during conservative talk-radio shows, Leggitt said. Registered Republicans will start receiving mailings on the issue.
On the other side, Owens continued to warn of dire consequences for Colorado if C and D are rejected.
“We will start to shut state departments,” Owens said.
The Independence Institute, whose president is the chairman of a “no” campaign, put out a paper titled, “Rewarding the Colorado General Assembly for Behaving Irresponsibly.”
It showed increases of 16 percent to education and 116 percent to health and hospitals, including Medicaid, between 2001 and 2003. Public schools and Medicaid both have legal requirements that require spending increases.
State employees saw wages and salaries increase almost 15 percent during that same time period, the report said.
Referendum C asks voters to allow the state to keep an estimated $3.7 billion more over the next five years than the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights would otherwise allow.
Referendum D would allow the state to sell $2.1 billion in bonds, mostly for school and road improvements.
It allows the state to sell bonds to cover 55 major highway improvements valued at about $1.2 billion.
In his address at the annual meeting of the Colorado Transportation Conference, Owens said the measures’ failure would cause a “crisis.”
The state, he said, would be forced to cut about $400 million more each year from an already strapped budget.
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at cfrates@denverpost.com or 303-820-1633.
Referendum C loosens the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights spending limits for five years, boosts the base line for calculating future spending growth and lets the state spend more money on roads, schools and health-care programs. Taxpayers would give up about $3.7 billion in TABOR refunds, an average of about $500 each over the five years. Some say the amount would be higher.
Referendum D allows the state to borrow up to $2.1 billion for 55 road projects, for school repairs in poor districts as required by a legal settlement and for mandatory payments to pensions for firefighters and police officers.
