The state Senate Finance Committee chose a day dominated by chilling showers to kill a proposed “rainy day fund” that would have staved off the need for radical cuts in state programs the next time the economy nosedives.
Talk about being unclear on the concept.
Unfortunately, the Senate’s supposed fiscal watchdogs did much worse than merely missing the obvious metaphorical connection between Tuesday’s miserable weather and the need for a rainy day fund. Democrats also failed the far more important test that comes with having majority control of the Senate – namely, the responsibility to put the public interest above politics when vital state issues are being decided.
Colorado is now entering the third year of the five-year “time-out” from the crippling restrictions of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that voters approved when they passed Referendum C in 2006. And in terms of the state budget, there is simply no more basic responsibility than using at least part of the extra cash authorized by voters to build a reserve against the next inevitable, downward swing of the economic cycle.
The House met that responsibility on March 5 by an overwhelming 64-1 vote when it approved House Bill 1303 by Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, and Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, to double the size of the state rainy day fund from the current 4 percent to 8 percent.
Yet, despite being a co-sponsor of this vital bill, Morse joined the 5-2 majority of the Senate Finance Committee that killed it Tuesday. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, and three Republicans – Greg Brophy of Wray, Mike Kopp of Jefferson County and Ted Harvey of Highlands Ranch – also voted to junk the rainy day fund.
Obviously, the three Republicans who voted to kill this bill were mocking their own party’s professed committment to fiscal responsility. But unlike their House counterparts, who unanimolusly backed the rainy day fund, Brophy, Kopp and Harvey abandoned GOP principles to play political games in hopes of mousetrapping Senate Democrats, as if to say they aren’t up to the task of managing the state budget.
With Republican support, the measure would have had a majority – but Morse and Veiga fell right into the trap. Only Denver Democrats Paula Sandoval and Chris Romer voted for a reserve fund to protect Colorado citizens against a future recession.
Though the bill is technically dead, there is plenty of time to revive it before the legislature is required to adjourn on May 9.
Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald should rally her Democratic colleagues to fulfill the responsibility that voters entrusted them with when they adopted Referendum C and then elected a Democratic legislature to translate their expressed will into the living reality of the state budget.
This editorial has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, the last name of Colorado state Sen. Mike Kopp was misspelled.
