Stolen refunds?
Title: “Hickenlooper’s Parachute”
Sponsor: Colorado Club for Growth Issue Committee
Type: TV ad
The message: The ad begins with footage from a vote yes commercial showing Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper parachuting out of a plane.
The ad cuts to a man and a woman wearing a shirt labeled “taxpayer” on the wing of a plane.
When the man tells the woman it’s time to jump, she replies, “But that politician took my parachute.” The man pushes the woman off the wing and shouts, “Somebody has to get by with less.”
Fact: The ad says the state budget grew more than 6 percent.
The day-to-day general fund operating budget, which is largely made up of state tax money controlled by legislators, grew by 4.1 percent this year, according to the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee staff.
When items such as pension-fund payments to the elderly and cigarette-tax rebates to the counties – which the legislature doesn’t control – are factored in, the increase grows to 6.75 percent, according to JBC staff.
However, the total budget, including all funding and capital construction, grew by 5.86 percent, according to JBC staff.
The ad also says, “don’t let them take your tax refunds.” The measures would not take the income-tax refund taxpayers receive when they overpay their taxes.
It would keep the refund due to them under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), which mandates refunds when the state takes in more money than TABOR’s constitutional limit allows.
