Like a scene from “Dumb and Dumber,” Republican gubernatorial hopeful Marc Holtzman Monday traveled to Grand Junction to offer a scheme to trash Colorado’s schools and highways that’s even more cynical than the cockamamie Bob Beauprez plan we criticized yesterday.
Sunday, Beauprez urged the effective overturning of voter-approved Referendum C with $500 million in tax rebates. Holtzman in effect countered with: “I’ll see your $500 million and raise you to a billion.”
But instead of Beauprez’s plan to rebate surpluses after they’re collected, Holtzman promised permanent tax cuts in advance – ensuring Colorado would plunge into another budget crisis in the very next recession.
The two GOP gubernatorial rivals are only guessing at future revenues. But if they’re right, state law ensures that every dime of Beauprez’s $500 million in cuts would come from hard-pressed highway and higher education budgets. Holtzman’s plan would go further, wiping out all supplemental highway funds and biting into severance tax funds that are now shared with local governments affected by energy development on the Western Slope.
Colorado’s complicated budget process can be compared to water flowing into a series of three pots. The first and largest pot is the general fund, which funds core state programs. A 1992 law limits it to a 6 percent increase annually, or $378 million this year. Any extra revenue left over flows into a second pot, created by the 1997 Senate Bill 1 and dedicated to transportation needs. That fund is capped at $218 million this year, which allowed a final $120 million to flow into a third and final pot created by the legislature in 2002. Two thirds of that final pot is earmarked for highways, while one third goes to other construction needs, such as at state colleges and universities.
If Beauprez’s proposed revenue ceiling had been in effect this year, it would have drained most of that third pot, cutting $66 million from highways and $34 million from higher education. Holtzman’s plan would cut deeper, slashing $160 million from highways and cutting $40 million from higher education. Next year, Holtzman’s plan would force deep cuts into severance tax funds now earmarked for western Colorado.
Both candidates opposed Referendum C last year, Holtzman stridently and Beauprez quietly. It’s dismaying that they’re blithely ignoring the will of the voters (and the responsible follow-up work of the 2006 legislature) in a race to see who can appeal to anti-tax hardliners among GOP activists. (The state Republican assembly is May 20.) And, it seems an odd political tactic that Holtzman would travel to Grand Junction to unveil a plan that would hurt the Western Slope to benefit Front Range residents.
