Take TABOR. Please.
And while we’re at it, take Gallagher and Amendment 23 and the handful of other constitutional and statutory formulas that stand between us and a sane state budget.
After a quarter-century of jumping from one ballot measure to the next, it’s time to stop setting fiscal policy by formula. Like impulse shoppers, we’ve cluttered Colorado’s constitution with complex and conflicting rules that leave elected representatives precious little room to solve real problems.
Why should we care? Because as boring as state budgets are for people with real lives, they are the way we provide for the common good and support those public structures that are critical to the kind of state we will leave to our children.
Consider community colleges, for example. They provide opportunities to families and capable workers for local employers. Yet in this decade, we have twice contemplated cuts so drastic that the state would have had no choice but to shut many of them down.
Or public health. Does anyone sleep easier knowing Colorado spends a lot less than most other states on everything from restaurant inspections to tracking cases of swine flu?
Or roads and bridges. Next time you drive the Interstate 70 viaduct, try not to think about what it looks like underneath. Or our schools, our law enforcement, our health-care safety net . . . the list goes on.
We’ve made some progress in recent years. In 2005, we voted for a timeout from TABOR, and this year the legislature is on the verge of repealing an outdated formula that for almost 20 years dictated how the general fund must be allocated (but never saved taxpayers one penny).
Let’s get rid of the formulas that tie our budget in knots. Let’s make sure we have a budget process that is fair and responsive to today’s challenges.
Then let’s hold our representatives accountable for using the money wisely and for making good decisions on our behalf.
Wade Buchanan is president of the Bell Policy Center, a non-profit, non-partisan policy research center.
