Re: “Local elected officials have the power to provide property tax relief,” March 22 editorial

The Post’s editorial on property tax reform fully recognizes that the current system of property tax assessments is an onerous one. While the need to fund public services is essential, the burden of Colorado’s property taxes on homeowners borders on the repressive. Critically, it affects the ability to purchase a home and maintain a reasonable standard of living.

Every year, the PITI (Principal, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance) calculation increases at an exponential rate. It is not only property taxes, but insurance rates, maintenance costs, and energy rates that continue to spiral out of control. What is affordable today will no longer be affordable within 5 years. If you are retired and on a fixed pension income, you soon will be trying to find ways to stay in your home and meet expenses while your income base shrinks.

The government has the power to ease the tax burden, but appears totally reluctant to address the “sacred cow” of property taxes. In 2024, a citizens’ initiative to freeze property taxes would have been on the ballot for Colorado voters.  But political pressure and Gov. Jared Polis, as well as the lack of termity of the initiative’s sponsors, doomed its inclusion on the ballot, and it was removed. The entire process smacked of the typical backroom political deal.

Unfortunately, the only way to reform Colorado’s arcane property tax system will be by citizen initiative or constitutional amendments submitted directly to the voters. Neither the governor nor the Colorado Legislature have the political fortitude to genuinely face the problem and develop viable solutions to ease the burden of Colorado’s property taxes.

Mark Boyko, Denver

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy provides resources to understand property taxes, including how to reduce the mill levy when property valuations go up. ()

The problem seems to be a lack of transparency and understanding about how property taxes work at each local jurisdiction. Who is responsible for adjusting the various mill levy rates? When are they adjusted? What happens for taxes passed through a bond issue (do they get more money even though the voters voted on a specific mill levy?

Overall, a doubling of property valuation should not automatically result in a doubling of property taxes, but instead, mill levy rates should be adjusted to increase property taxes by a reasonable amount.

Steve Malers, Fort Collins

The Post editorial points to the portability of the senior and veteran Homestead Property Tax Exemption as a partial relief valve for those who qualify for it. But, what happens when the General Assembly fails to fund the program due to ongoing deficits like the $1.5 billion hole it is inexpertly trying to fill this year?

Seniors who have become accustomed to this annual property tax break will be shocked when they get their next bill in January 2027, as they learn that the legislature will defund this program, which reimburses Colorado counties for the amount granted to affected taxpayers. Don’t take my word for it – just call your state representative and/or senator for confirmation.

Jim Bensberg, Colorado Springs

Headlines paint a dry picture

I watered my sagebrush recently. I’ve never needed to do that before, since it’s well adapted to hot, dry conditions.  While pondering its survivability, recent headlines in the Denver Post came to mind — ” ,” “Mountains are likely at peak snowpack,” and “Property-tax jumps shock homeowners“, etc.  What’s the common thread?  Global warming. But it’s not just a problem for my sagebrush, or Colorado, or the American Southwest.

Domestic migration into the Sun Belt states is declining, due in part to off-the-chart heat waves, devastating storms, once-in-a-century floods, and year-round fire seasons — along with the consequential costs, such as unaffordable homeowners’ insurance and destroyed livelihoods. These migrants will move to places with fewer of these global-warming-caused problems — like Colorado — and we will feel the effects of which we are not prepared.

My sagebrush is sending us all a warning.  It’s the same warning that the climate scientists have been making for decades — expect to see a lot more Denver Post articles about the costs of global warming, and much sooner than you expected.

Joe McGloin, Sheridan

How many property tax delinquencies will follow change in tax bill notices?

Re: “We want our property tax bill in the mail,” March 20 letter to the editor

We echo the letter writer’s opinion that we want our property tax bill mailed out. The postcards sent out this year clearly said “This is not a bill” and therefore went straight into our recycling.  Only because of The Denver Post����ap article last month did we realize this was indeed our property tax bill!

Is a mailed postcard so much less expensive than a mailed bill?  The Denver Treasury can save money by not sending out hardcopy bills to those who have a mortgage on their property, as the mortgage company effectively pays the taxes to the city on behalf of the owner.  We own our property outright and need to receive a bill so that we can promptly pay our taxes easily via return envelope.

While we can figure this new system out, my mom certainly cannot.  She has a smartphone and not a computer.  Please write a follow-up article on how many property tax delinquencies ensue this year.

Joanna and Chris Johnson, Denver

Trump should remember Putin is the enemy

Re: “Putin is not our ally,” March 22 commentary

Trudy Rubin’s op-ed was superb. Without any provocation, Russian leader Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. He is a war criminal, and as Ms. Rubin clearly and concisely explains, Putin has never had a better lap dog and useful sycophant than President Trump.

Rick Tedesco, Lakewood

Voting documentation should be within reason and obtainable in a timely manner

It is difficult to understand how requiring that only United States citizens vote in U.S. elections has become controversial.

Recent Senate debate over voter legislation highlights a deeper issue. Supporters emphasize election integrity, while opponents warn about potential barriers to participation. Both concerns matter. But one principle should not be negotiable: Federal elections are for citizens.

There is room for reasonable discussion about how to implement verification without burdening eligible voters. That is where thoughtful leadership is needed. However, rejecting the goal of citizenship verification altogether risks weakening public confidence in the system. A healthy democracy depends on both access and integrity. We should not have to choose between the two.

This should not be a partisan question. It is a matter of basic civic responsibility.

Ken Johnson, Aurora

As debate grows around requiring proof of citizenship to vote, there is a straightforward principle that should guide policy: if the government requires it, the government should provide it.

As a Colorado resident who has long voted by mail, I have seen firsthand how a system can be both secure and accessible. That balance is not theoretical. It is already working here.

Requiring proof of citizenship may be intended to strengthen election integrity. But without universal access, it risks creating new barriers for eligible voters. Nearly half of Americans do not have a valid passport. Obtaining one can cost more than $150, not including fees for birth certificates, time off work, or travel to application centers.

A requirement that is not easily attainable is not a neutral safeguard. It is a filter.

If policymakers are serious about election integrity, the solution is simple. Make proof of citizenship free and easy to obtain. Expand access through post offices, DMVs, and mobile units. Ensure every eligible voter can comply without unnecessary burden.

Colorado shows that access and security can coexist. National policy should follow that example.

If you require it, you provide it.

Carole Buyers, Englewood

The March 23 “Today in history stated, “1933: The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.”

Today’s version could be called the “.”

Wake up, America, before it’s too late.

Richard (Dick) Emerson, Denver

Data centers could be boon to state coffers and struggling communities

Re: “No corporate welfare for data centers. Big Tech can pay its fair share,” March 15 commentary

Krista Kafers’s recent column is yet another in the Post’s line of one-sided anti-data-center opinions. While all have been poorly informed, hers is excessively so. She reports that a sales and use tax exemption would reduce Colorado general fund revenue by tens of millions of dollars. That’s only true if the data centers were to be developed regardless of the tax exemption … which is nonsensical. As she notes, 38 other states offer exemptions — the development will go there.

Colorado won’t claim tax revenue on business that never arrives.

Moreover, she ignores the substantial benefits that lead politicians to entice data center development. These include property, income, payroll, and local taxes. Employment growth is also important. She cites low-estimate staff per data center while ignoring permanent security and maintenance staff. These sites also fund hundreds of construction jobs that last 5-10 years or more until the facility is complete. Even then, technology changes drive regular retrofit work and upgrades. These combined benefits are a boon to struggling towns and cities, of which Colorado has its fair share.

Anyone familiar with data center regions like northern Virginia, eastern Oregon, and central Washington knows that such areas have seen appreciable improvements in roads, utilities, schools, government services, and population and economic growth. Approval of will allow Colorado to compete with other states while implementing reasonable guardrails to manage such developments.

Brad Rehak, Denver

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The legislative package sponsored by a dozen lawmakers would repeal a variety of state tax exemptions that mirror tax breaks in the federal code. It puts a particular focus on splitting the state tax code from changes made by the tax cut bill passed last year by Congress and championed by President Donald Trump.

The targeted cuts would include a cap on how much corporations can write off from operating losses, how much depreciation businesses can write off for things like buildings and equipment, and how much interest a business can deduct from its taxes. Filers who use those tax breaks would no longer get the full benefit for state tax purposes.

The new bills build off state Democrats’ work during last summer’s special session to close a slew of tax exemptions and update the state tax code in response to H.R. 1. That is commonly known as Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”

Lawmakers hope to use the money the state pockets from ending the exemptions to extend or expand some state tax credits, such as those for rehabbing mostly vacant buildings in enterprise zones and for wildfire mitigation. Supporters also hope to steer some of the money to recipients of the state’s new — and on the ropes — Family Affordability Tax Credit, or the FATC.

That new program has given direct payments to low- and middle-income families to help with child-rearing costs, starting with the tax-filing season a year ago. Researchers credited the program with helping to cut Colorado’s child poverty by more than a third last year.

“Seldom have we seen any piece of tax policy be that effective, that quickly,” Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat sponsoring some of the proposals, said at a news conference. “That has been our North Star in assembling this whole package.”

During the event, supporters framed the reforms as shifting tax cuts away from wealthy corporations and toward everyday Coloradans who could use the help to pay for car repairs or for clothes or extracurricular activities for their children.

But in the business community, people worry about the proposals hamstringing Colorado’s competitiveness with other states, Colorado Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Loren Furman said Tuesday. The chamber hasn’t taken a formal position yet, but Furman said it has “deep concerns” about the overall package.

“Together, these proposals shift the burden of Colorado’s budget shortfall on the backs of employers of all sizes via procedural changes to the tax code, reviving several problematic concepts from bills that we’ve repeatedly fought, negotiated or killed in prior years,” Furman said in a statement. “At the end of the day, these bills will increase taxes on businesses at a time when Colorado’s competitiveness rankings continue to decline, further driving companies and families out of the state due to sky-high costs.”

The changes to the federal tax code last summer plunged Colorado’s tax collections below a threshold that would allow for the family tax credit in the current fiscal year, meaning parents won’t receive the money when they file their taxes in 2027.

The tax package proposed Tuesday wouldn’t funnel money directly into that credit, but it would create a new Family Affordability Credit mirroring .

The current family credit gives money directly to joint filers with incomes below $96,000 or single filers with incomes below $85,000. The credit provides more money to lower-income families and those with younger children, and then scales the credit down as the incomes and ages of tax filers rise.

Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Fort Collins Democrat, said it is “crucial” to pass the tax reform package this year because of how effective the FATC has been.

“The progress we made is not something I’m willing to walk back,” Zokaie said in an interview previewing the package.

Three of the four bills were introduced Tuesday afternoon as House Bills , and . A nonpartisan fiscal analysis showing their effect on state tax collections and spending was not yet available.

In addition to Zokaie and Weissman, the bills are being sponsored by Democratic Reps. Andrew Boesenecker, Kyle Brown, Lorena Garcia, Karen McCormick, Emily Sirota and Steven Woodrow, plus Sens. Judy Amabile, Matt Ball, Cathy Kipp, Dylan Roberts and Katie Wallace.

The party has a nearly 2-to-1 majority in the Capitol. But Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, said in an interview at the start of the legislative session in January that he’d want broad-based tax cuts as part of any tax package. He won an income tax cut as part of negotiations to pass the original FATC bill in 2024.

This year, however, Garcia said that “never in a million years” would she consider a broad-based tax cut when the caucus’s goal is direct support to working families.

“At the end of the day, the governor is going to see that this is absolutely necessary,” said Garcia, from Adams County. “He’s trying to say that he wants to put money back in the hands of hardworking families. This is how we do it.”

But Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce President and CEO J. J. Ament echoed Furman’s concerns about the package. The proposals would particularly hurt small businesses, he said.

“You simply cannot make things more expensive and more affordable at the same time,” Ament said in a statement. “The legislature would be better served by focusing on increasing Colorado’s competitiveness and attractiveness for business investment and great jobs.”

The new package is part of a broader push on the left to remake Colorado’s tax system. The state has long been governed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which mandates a flat income tax and caps state revenue collection.

The Colorado Education Association is backing a proposed ballot measure that would exempt education spending from the cap — in effect, giving the state an additional buffer of billions of dollars before it would have to refund money to taxpayers. It would earmark some of the cash for education. Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, is planning to introduce a bill to refer that measure to the ballot.

The progressive Bell Policy Center recently won preliminary approval to solicit signatures through the initiative process for another measure that would institute a graduated income tax, in which wealthier Coloradans would pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes.

The proposals wouldn’t necessarily compete with each other, but they would upend the foundation of Colorado’s tax code.

For one, the education proposal would, in effect, erase the state’s TABOR surplus, or the money collected over the revenue cap. That money is generally used to pay for a slew of Colorado tax credits, including the FATC, before issuing general taxpayer refunds.

The tax package unveiled Tuesday would sidestep that issue by dedicating money from the closed write-offs and other exemptions to fund the new, similar-but-separate Family Affordability Credit.

Taken alone, either of the two proposals — a graduated income tax that requires the wealthy to pay more and another that raises the state’s spending cap dramatically — would represent a fundamental change to the state’s rigid tax structure. Taken together, the measures ask voters to reimagine how taxes are collected and spent.

The potential benefits would go to education, in particular, as well as to health care, child care and a slew of other state services that Democrats say have been shortchanged by a system that has been largely untouched for nearly 20 years.

The measures would also mean tax increases for the wealthiest Coloradans, changes to the slew of tax credits that draw on the state’s surplus tax collections, and a potential end to the sales tax refunds that the state frequently issues with tax returns.

The two ballot measures, one a potential referred measure backed by the Colorado Education Association and the other an outside initiative by the progressive Bell Policy Center, wouldn’t directly compete with each other, backers said. But the two proposals would ask voters big, similar questions as Democrats try to solve what they see as major structural problems with state finances.

“They both attack the problem in different ways,” said Kevin Vick, the president of the CEA, the largest teachers union in the state, at a rally Thursday outside the state Capitol to support changing the state spending cap. “They don’t compete with each other in ways they attack the issue.”

But he acknowledged: “We’re still working through what having both of them on the ballot may mean for voters.”

The CEA proposal, which would raise the state spending cap set by the TABOR Amendment in the state constitution, likely faces an easier path to the ballot than the graduated income tax proposal.

TABOR, which Colorado voters adopted in 1992, restricts growth in government using a formula that factors in population growth and inflation. The CEA proposal would ask voters to exempt the state share of K-12 education funding from that cap — in effect giving the state a $4.5 billion buffer before it needs to refund money — while promising to increase education funding by at least 2% per year. The buffer could last for years.

Those billions wouldn’t suddenly materialize in the state budget. The most recent economic forecast from the legislature predicts the state will be $501 million over the cap in the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, and $807 million over in the following fiscal year.

Under this proposal, the state would be able to keep that money instead of refunding it.

‘An outdated and arbitrary revenue cap’

Democrats, who outnumber Republicans in the legislature by a ratio of nearly 2-to-1, frequently argue that the TABOR cap unnecessarily hamstrings the state in paying for public services, from roads to health care. The proposal, which has yet to be officially filed but has been talked about since the legislative session began Jan. 14, could land on ballots with a simple majority of support from lawmakers.

“This is something that hasn’t changed in decades,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who will sponsor the measure. He said it was time to take the issue to voters and give them the choice of keeping the spending cap or raising it to enable the state to “lower class sizes, increase teacher pay and make sure our kids are ready for the workforce.”

“This is the time for Coloradans to ask themselves, ‘How much do we care about our kids?’ And to figure out what we need to do as proper and adjusted investments,” added state Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat who plans to sponsor the bill when it’s introduced. “One thing I do know about Coloradans is we do care about our kids, and we care about our kids across the state.”

In recent years, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has celebrated the end of the so-called budget stabilization factor, or the budgeting maneuver that long allowed the state to fund K-12 education below the constitutionally required amount. The legislature also passed a rewrite of the state’s school finance funding formula to try to better direct the state’s contribution.

While state education funding is no longer lower than the constitution requires, advocates note that it����ap still at inflation-adjusted 1989 levels — a time before families expected Chromebooks and mental health services.

Now, the state is between $3.5 billion and $4.1 billion short when it comes to adequately funding education, according released early last year.

At the rally on Thursday, Vick, from the teachers’ union, tied education funding to the TABOR cap.

“For more than 30 years, an outdated and arbitrary revenue cap has kept our state funding tied up so tightly that we can’t invest in public education and keep up with student needs,” Vick said.

The measure, if adopted by voters in roughly the shape envisioned by its backers, would immediately boost public education funding by between $90 million and $100 million, Vick said, with annual increases after that.

It wouldn’t be “the final piece” to achieving full funding of education, he said, “but we need to provide some relief now and get this increase in funding started, so we’re not losing generations of kids to this crisis.”

The change would also free up potentially billions of dollars in flush years for the state to spend on other priorities, like its ever-growing Medicaid costs — and keep the money from being directly returned to Coloradans via the sales tax refund that’s typically issued with tax filings or through the litany of tax credits lawmakers have passed recently, including the Family Affordability Tax Credit. That one has been credited by draft study with lowering childhood poverty rates significantly in its first year.

Gov. Jared Polis, who often advocates for cutting taxes, hasn’t officially weighed in on the CEA’s outlines for the measure, though his signature wouldn’t be necessary for the legislature to refer it to the voters.

In an interview with The Denver Post earlier this month, he signaled some caution because, as it stands now, there are simply some years when the state doesn’t hit the TABOR cap — meaning there wouldn’t be extra money anyway.

“Generally speaking, two years out of every 10 or so — usually because of a recession, but it could be because of federal tax changes — we don’t have a TABOR surplus,” Polis said. “So I would just want to highlight that if you’re talking about base spending, it might work seven or eight years out of 10.”

Kristi Burton Brown, the vice president of the Advance Colorado Institute, a conservative think tank that often opposes measures it sees as an attack on TABOR, said the math doesn’t add up for this proposal. Raising the spending cap by $4.5 billion, while earmarking only $100 million of the increased spending capacity for education, could result in the creation of a “slush fund,” she warned — while it also “basically destroys the possibility of ever getting TABOR refunds again.”

Another question remains: Will voters go for it?

Voters have rejected recent attempts to adjust the TABOR cap. Proposition CC, with its promise to dedicate funding to education and roads, went down in 2019. Four years later, Proposition HH — despite promises to boost education funding and soften property tax increases — also failed.

Backers argue this new proposal asks voters a more direct question — Can the state keep money to pay for education? — than those failed efforts.

Burton Brown argues the earlier questions were direct enough, and directly answered by voters with a resounding “No” when the electorate saw them as end-runs around TABOR.

“While voters like those things (that were promised), I don’t think voters are willing to give up their TABOR refunds, give up the cap on state revenue to do that,” Burton Brown said.

The measure also may not be the only question about changing state taxes on the ballot in November.

Income tax measure would change flat rate

The Bell Policy Center, a progressive think tank in Denver, recently won preliminary approval from the state’s title board for its proposed ballot measure.

It would change the state’s income tax code from a flat-rate tax — where every Coloradan pays the same percentage of their income, currently 4.4% — to a graduated rate where lower-income people pay a smaller percentage in taxes while wealthier Coloradans pay a higher rate.

The center’s proposal would result in lower-income taxpayers paying a lower tax rate than they do today, while wealthier taxpayers would pay more, with the rate increasing with each income bracket. The first $25,000 a person earns would be taxed at 3.7%; income over $25,000 but less than $100,000 would be taxed at 4.2%; and income between $100,000 and $500,000 would be taxed at 4.4%. Only money earned beyond that $500,000 mark would be taxed at a higher rate of between 7.4% and 8.4%.

For the vast majority of Coloradans — an estimated 97% — the proposal would mean a tax cut, Bell Policy Center President Chris deGruy Kennedy said. It would also earmark money collected over the current TABOR cap to be spent on child care, health care and education.

The proposal still needs final approval from the title board — including facing likely challenges from Burton Brown’s group — before backers can begin gathering signatures.

“This is not just a lefty thing. This is the way taxes are done in more than half the states of this country,” including Republican states, deGruy Kennedy said. “We just want to restore an income tax system that relieves undue pressure on the lowest-income Coloradans.”

The Bell measure and the teachers union’s measure would propose changes to different parts of the tax code. Supporters of each are keenly aware that they’d be asking big questions of voters.

DeGruy Kennedy said the two measures would build off one another — not compete — and “allow the state to make very, very meaningful investments.” Voters have a history of deciding each ballot measure separately, but it’s an open question as to how the electorate would see these two interplaying, he said.

But for Burton Brown and other conservatives, the proposals would amount to “completely wrecking the tax code that people have really relied on and really liked for a long time in Colorado.” She warned of the additional strain it would put on a precarious state economy.

“Obviously, if either gets on (the ballot), they need to be fought with serious campaigns against them so voters aren’t deceived by bad messaging that doesn’t give them the full picture,” Burton Brown said.

Other tax questions, and the governor’s view

While those efforts play out, Democratic lawmakers are also working on several measures to further tweak the state’s tax code. They want to close or limit business-friendly tax incentives in the hopes of bolstering the rest of the budget.

The package is still being drafted, and it’s unclear how much money the proposals might raise. But lawmakers say they intend to direct that money toward what may become a new program to support families, in a similar vein to the successful Family Affordability Tax Credit passed two years ago.

“We know that families are struggling right now, and do we want to give corporations more tax breaks? Or do we want to be able to put money in the hands of struggling families?” said Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Fort Collins Democrat involved in drafting the bills. “I think it’s important that we put money here.”

One bill would eliminate a sales tax exemption that the state applies to software purchased online (sales tax is already assessed on software purchased in stores). Another, sponsored by Zokaie, would further limit deductions that corporations can take on executive compensation and a tax provision that lets companies deduct current-year losses from future years’ income.

The third bill would decouple the state from four federal tax incentives that were created or expanded under the tax-and-spend bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in July, said Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat.

The package would partially build on tax reforms lawmakers began to pass last year, both during the regular session and the budget-bandaging special session in August.

In his final State of the State address this month, Polis made his own pitch for tax reform — by inviting lawmakers to support an income tax cut.

Speaking to reporters afterward, the governor gestured at the coming tax package from his fellow Democrats and indicated he’d support it if lawmakers included another “significant” income tax reduction, on top of others passed by voters in recent years.

“This would be part of a comprehensive tax-reform package,” he said. “So, reducing special interest tax loopholes, using some of the proceeds for reducing the income tax and other proceeds for other progressive tax credits.”

He later elaborated that he would want any tax package to include a broader tax cut — such as to income tax rates, property taxes or sales taxes — along with targeted programs, like the Family Affordabilty Tax Credit.

To pass the family affordability credit in 2024, legislators begrudgingly agreed to an income tax cut sought by Polis that’s conditional, depending on the size of TABOR surpluses.

But this year, some lawmakers said they were not interested in a similar deal.

“I’m always happy to negotiate with the governor,” Garcia said. “I will never give in to an income tax cut. Period.”

In a statement Thursday, Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama said the governor “looks forward to working with the legislature to help Coloradans keep more of their hard-earned money, close corporate tax loopholes, and streamline our tax code.”

“While it����ap early in session, the governor’s office is in active conversations with sponsors over what it would take to get the governor on board,” Maruyama wrote, “and he encourages everyone to keep an open mind on saving people money.”

Now that OBBBA has been signed and is the law of the land, over the course of the next year, governors and lawmakers in many states will be seeking to pass legislation that complements some of the changes that OBBBA made to the federal tax code.

In statehouses across the country, lawmakers will take action to provide the same year-one deductibility at the state level for business capital expenditures, along with research and development costs, that OBBBA restored federally. While state lawmakers will seek to conform with some of the changes made by OBBBA, they’ll also work to decouple from other parts, particularly the international provisions.

In addition to full business expensing, expect some state lawmakers to propose emulating OBBBA’s $25,000 tax deduction for tips and overtime pay by providing a similar state deduction. In fact, over the past year, lawmakers in more than a dozen states have introduced legislation that provides some form of state tax exemption for tip income. That trend will likely continue following federal enactment of the tips and overtime exemptions.

Coming state legislation that complements or conforms with OBBBA will typically be done in a way that reduces state tax burdens, but that����ap not the case everywhere.

Take Colorado, where Democrats who control state government have gone in the opposite direction, clawing back some of the federal tax relief that OBBBA provided to workers. Voters, however, may soon have an opportunity to undo that maneuver, which was designed to counteract some of the tax relief provided by OBBBA.

“In April, legislators added into House Bill 1296 — a bill that made several changes to state tax exemptions — a requirement for residents to add the amount of overtime pay excluded from their federal income tax revenue to their Colorado taxable income,” Ed Sealover wrote in a July 17 , a news site published by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. “This was a defensive move anticipating that Congress could exempt overtime compensation from federal tax income, as state officials said that mirroring federal law would cost Colorado $400 million to $600 million in annual revenue.”

A July 10 noted that “Colorado’s Legislature and Gov. Jared Polis decided to gut-punch Colorado workers,” by voting this spring to raise state taxes on overtime pay, “essentially taxing their hard-earned overtime wages.” That state tax hike, the Gazette editorial went on to add, “was buried in an obscure, wide-ranging bill innocuously titled, ‘Tax Expenditure Adjustment,’ which lawmakers passed this spring.”

Advance Colorado, an organization that has a record of running successful ballot measure campaigns, filed paperwork with the Colorado Secretary of State on July 8 to begin collecting the signatures needed to place a measure on the 2026 ballot. That measure, Initiative 119, would undo the provision in the Expenditure Adjustment Act that decoupled from the new federal exemption for overtime pay. What����ap more, Initiative 119 would also prevent state taxation of tip income. In order to qualify for the 2026 ballot, Initiative 119 supporters must collect 124,238 valid signatures.

“If they would have done nothing,” Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado, said about Colorado legislators, “people would have seen this reduction.” Fields added that when people find out about what the legislature did to ensure that enactment of OBBBA would not also result in a new state tax break for workers, “they are going to be upset that the state took a direct action to ensure higher taxes.”

It remains to be seen whether lawmakers in other states will follow Colorado’s lead, changing state tax law as a way to not provide state tax relief that is the same as what their constituents received from OBBBA. Even if Illinois, New York, Oregon, and other blue states follow suit, however, there is a good chance Colorado voters will end up undoing the state tax hike that served as a model for such proposals.

Patrick Gleason is vice president of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform, a taxpayer group founded in 1985 at the request of President Ronald Reagan. 

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Big tax and labor bills are still unresolved as the end of the session approaches. Time pressure is mounting in other fights, including one between hospitals and the drug industry over how the proceeds from a prescription drug program can be spent. And top lawmakers already have punted on other priorities or scaled them back.

Limbo doesn’t mean death in the legislature, but every flip of the daily calendar puts more pressure on a bill’s backers, opponents and interested parties to find a resolution to their liking. In some cases, bills have lingered as negotiations proceeded in the background. Other deals have been hinted at but haven’t yet emerged.

But the clock is ticking. Barring a special session, the legislature must adjourn for the year by May 7. Whether the proposals pass, fail, change dramatically or simply don’t materialize will depend on a dozen factors between now and then.

“We have a tremendous volume moving through both chambers — a lot of big discussions and conversations still happening,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie said late last week. “It is kind of that magic time when things start to fall into place and come together.”

She added: “I’m eager to celebrate another great legislative session in less than two weeks.”

Here’s a look at several big debates to watch:

A TABOR reckoning? Maybe not.

A few weeks after a group of House Democrats called for a “reckoning” on the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and previewed a slew of tax-reform measures, most of that package is either on life support or never saw the light of day.

The centerpiece of the package — a resolution that would direct state lawyers to pursue a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of TABOR’s very existence — hasn’t yet reached the House floor, let alone started its journey through the Senate. The bill passed a committee vote in early April but has languished since.

House Majority Leader Monica Duran said it was questionable if the debate would happen at all, given how little time was left in the session. TABOR, enacted by voters more than 30 years ago, requires voter approval for tax increases and limits how much government spending can grow.

Rep. Sean Camacho, a Denver Democrat backing the TABOR lawsuit, said he was “optimistic” the proposal would still be heard. Either way, he said, the state’s budget constraints — which many Democrats ascribe to TABOR’s spending caps — aren’t going away.

“Regardless of whether our bills passed or not, next year’s budget situation — and the year after that and the year after that — the question remains, can we sustain ourselves under TABOR?” he said Friday.

Another blockbuster proposal — to replace the state’s flat income tax with a graduated system that would more steeply tax the wealthiest Coloradans — was never introduced.

McCluskie said Thursday that there would be no income tax proposal introduced this year. That would’ve been a seismic legislative fight and also very likely would’ve been opposed by Gov. Jared Polis, who’s repeatedly voiced support for lowering and eliminating the income tax.

, which would have tweaked or eliminated tax credits and deductions, was gutted in a House committee; its amended version passed an initial floor vote Friday.

Another idea, to reclassify highway funding so it didn’t fall under the TABOR cap — thus allowing the state to spend more money — was also never introduced.

, though, remains alive and well: That bill, which would reclassify other types of revenue to free up space elsewhere under the TABOR cap, passed the Senate and cleared a first House vote Friday.

Health care fight continues

One of the biggest fights of the legislative session has unfolded largely outside public view.

But within the Capitol, the lobbying and hand-wringing over the federal — which allows hospitals and health centers to buy prescription drugs at a discount — has been constant.

The politicking started well before session began. By January, much of the lobbying corps had been hired up, either by the hospital industry — to back a bill preventing pharmaceutical companies from limiting the program — or by the drugmakers, to oppose the hospitals’ bill and push their own measure. Their bill would require more transparency and guardrails around how the proceeds from the program are spent.

Labor unions have also jumped in, backing the pharma bill.

The two bills likely can’t both pass, and the two sides — pharma and hospitals — are powerful, wealthy and entrenched. As a result, the path forward is muddy: Though amendments inched the bills closer together, by late March, the Senate threw its hands up and passed both, kicking the debate to the House to resolve.

After a delay, the measures were set to be in the House’s Health and Human Services Committee on Monday — nine days before the session ends.

“I think the hospitals feel like they have given as much as they can in terms of transparency,” said Rep. Kyle Brown, a Louisville Democrat sponsoring the pharma bill; he’s also the chair of the health committee. “And I think that labor, in particular — or even some of the other patient groups — feel like they have given what they feel like they can. And pharma’s in there, too — and they generally are not very excited about laws like this across the country.”

Rep. Matt Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat backing the hospital bill, said his goal is “making sure that we’re passing good policy, and how we can do that is something we’ve been working on.”

Brown said he expected amendments on “at least one bill” this week.

“You might see the bills migrate even further together. I expect them to,” Brown said. “But I don’t know. Just depends on where we end up. I am really hopeful that we can come to some agreements. I think everybody wants the program to continue and wants to know about how the money’s being used and make sure it����ap being used for patient care.”

Labor debate simmers

, introduced on the first day of the session in January, was backed by Democrats and unions but opposed by the business community and Polis. One hundred and seven days later, negotiations were still ongoing Friday over a proposal that would make it easier for unionized workers to begin negotiating union dues with their employer.

“We are at the table, and I’m optimistic we’re going to reach an agreement that labor supports and is excited about,” said Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat who’s co-sponsoring the bill. “But time’s running short.”

The bill has already passed the Senate and cleared two House committee votes. But it hasn’t yet reached the House floor, where it needs two more votes before moving to Polis. Labor unions are negotiating with the governor’s office and business groups like the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.

The timeline for — or likelihood of — a deal is unclear. McCluskie, who’s tried to shepherd the negotiations, said Thursday morning that “everyone is talking about a compromise that ultimately earns the governor’s signature, and we can do the right thing by workers in the state — and in a way that����ap in partnership with our business community.”

Polis has also brought in his former chief of staff, Lisa Kaufmann, to help steer talks.

If the negotiations bear fruit, it may require an entirely new bill. Under legislative rules guiding what can be changed in legislation, any movement toward the business community’s position would probably mean SB-5 must be scrapped and replaced with a new bill in the final week-plus of the session.

That’s not fatal: Legislators often recite — sometimes through gritted teeth — that a bill can be passed in three days if needed. Still, it’s an added complication for a contentious bill that’s hung over the Capitol since January.

Both sides are carrying sticks: Polis has said he intends to veto the bill if the sponsors don’t reach a deal with the business community. And labor unions, in turn, have leveraged national forces to push Polis to sign the bill.

They’ve also proposed a ballot measure that would make it harder to fire workers in Colorado — potentially a greater labor win that poses a deeper threat for businesses. Should the negotiations’ result prove acceptable to the unions, union officials have said they will drop the ballot measure.

Regulation review scaled back, clean energy scrapped

On Wednesday, the Senate introduced that would require the state auditor to conduct performance audits of the state’s air pollution control and labor standards divisions.

The legislation is a much-narrowed version of a proposal drafted earlier this year that similarly called for audits of some state regulations. That earlier idea — which was never introduced in the legislature — would’ve more explicitly created a path to change regulations after the audits were concluded.

Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, a Denver Democrat, said the regulatory review was scrapped for this session and is now tabbed for work over the summer.

Instead, lawmakers introduced . That bill would simply require efficiency audits of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s air pollution control division and the Department of Labor and Employment’s division of labor standards and statistics.

Still, the Colorado chamber, which backed a study highlighting the extent of state regulations last year, praised the measure’s introduction Wednesday.

“If we want to foster a healthy long-term economic climate, it����ap critical that we create a thoughtful regulatory review process, and we’re grateful to our legislative partners for paving the way to a more transparent regulatory environment,” the chamber’s president and CEO, Loren Furman, said in a statement.

Another bill that had been quietly discussed, meanwhile, will not arrive this year. Polis’ office and lawmakers had begun drafting a bill to accelerate the state’s clean energy plans and require that 100% of Colorado’s energy come from clean sources by 2040 — 10 years earlier than current plans.

When The Denver Post first reported on the idea earlier this month, supporters privately said the proposal had a 50/50 chance of coming to fruition this year, given that the legislative session’s clock was ticking.

On Thursday, though, McCluskie said the bill wasn’t happening this year — but said discussions would continue.

“The idea of a clean energy plan for 2040 is a really big discussion conversation,” she said, “and we simply did not have time to stake-hold that in a way that would’ve been fair to everyone involved.”

Re: “Colorado gets blinded by showbusiness,” Feb. 2 editorial

The $34 million Colorado taxpayer bribe to entice the Sundance Film Festival to relocate to Boulder misses a bigger issue. As the sole legislator, so far, to vote against this taxpayer giveaway to a private entity, I’ve observed up close the legislative fetish to reward politically favored groups rather than focusing on core government functions. It is a huge problem. And a bipartisan one.

Not a single Republican voted against this $34 million raid on Colorado’s TABOR taxpayer refunds for Boulder’s film festival despite claiming to be responsible protectors of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). Yet while we can always find subsidies for politically favored groups and pet projects, we cannot attend to basic duties of government.

For example, despite Colorado’s high cost of living, we have some of America’s lowest-paid teachers. And they pay hundreds to thousands of dollars every year for classroom support/supplies. But while people know it is wrong to have them paying to help provide the constitutionally mandated public education for our children, a refundable tax credit to attend to this issue died unfunded in appropriations two years in a row despite moving out of committee in a unanimous bipartisan 11-0 vote last year.

Meanwhile, the state government sets up $2.5 million in film subsidies (with $500,000 given to Amazon for the “Coach Prime” series) and $26 million in taxpayer subsidies so people can receive $500 off electric bike purchases. We have to make choices. Resources are finite. We should focus those finite resources upon basic government functions rather than chasing every bright shiny project du jour.

Bob Marshall, Highlands Ranch

Editor’s note: Marshall is a state representative for House District 43.

Don’t discourage recycling by dismissing the science

Re: “Time to end the lie of plastics recycling and get real about reducing their use,” Jan. 24 opinion column

In response to the January 24th opinion piece, the writer presents a contradictory stance — calling herself a ‘dedicated recycler,’ while dismissing plastic recycling as a lie. This kind of rhetoric risks discouraging consumers from recycling valuable materials that are essential to a circular economy.

Misleading claims about plastic recycling undermine efforts to improve recycling rates in the U.S. Each year, Americans recycle over five billion pounds of plastic and the plastics industry has invested over $8 billion into improving recycling infrastructure and advancing new technologies.

, breaks plastics down into their original building blocks — without burning them — expanding the types of materials that can be recovered. Instead of dismissing innovation, we should support solutions like pyrolysis that enhance recycling and keep more plastics in a circular economy.

We must work together to increase recycling rates, and the plastics industry fully recognizes its responsibility to be part of the solution. Plastic recycling is real — every day Americans recycle plastic, keeping valuable materials in our economy and out of the environment. That����ap why the Plastics Industry Assocation launched our “Recycling is Real” campaign: to highlight the thousands of workers, facilities, and technologies showing that plastic recycling works. It’s also why we recently launched a Plastic Film Recycling Directory, where consumers can find a location near them to recycle plastic films.

Plastic plays a vital role in modern life, from protecting food and medicine to reducing transportation emissions.  found that plastics have a lower total greenhouse gas footprint than materials like aluminum or glass. Rather than discouraging recycling or banning certain materials like plastic, we should focus on improving recycling systems, increasing consumer access, and advance policies that support a circular economy for all materials. The solution isn’t eliminating plastics; it����ap ensuring we recycle more of it. The plastics industry remains committed to making that happen and wants to work together towards real solution to our recycling challenges.

Patrick Krieger, Washington

Editor’s note: Krieger is the senior vice president of sustainability and policy at the Plastics Industry Association.

While recycling faces challenges, PET (#1 plastic) recycling is a proven, scalable solution for a sustainable economy.

PET bottles are the most recycled plastic globally, with over 1.9 million pounds recovered in the U.S. in 2023. They can be repeatedly recycled and made with up to 100% recycled PET.

States like Oregon show that recycling works – its bottle deposit program achieves PET recycling rates above 75%, demonstrating the power of smart policies. Colorado is likewise taking the lead with an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program to expand recycling and increase recovery of materials like PET statewide.

When recycled, PET bottles return to the market as new products, reducing waste, conserving resources, and lowering carbon emissions. Lightweight, durable, and FDA-approved, PET is also important in healthcare, food safety, and disaster relief. Misguided bans or production caps threaten these benefits without addressing waste effectively.

The solution isn’t to abandon recycling but to strengthen it. Investments in infrastructure, public education, and supportive policies can improve recycling rates nationwide and help PET reach its full potential as a sustainable option. Let����ap not throw out a sustainable option based on misconceptions. Recycling is part of the solution – not the problem.

Laura Stewart, Middleton, Wis.

Editor’s note: Stewart is the executive director of the National Association for PET Container Resources, the trade association for PET plastics packaging industry.

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Alec Garnett, a former Democratic lawmaker from Denver, joined the governor’s office at the start of 2023 after serving as speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives. He used those close ties to lawmakers as he worked to pass Polis’ agenda and weigh in on legislation, including during a special legislative session last week that was aimed at averting property tax reform ballot initiatives as part of a deal with conservative and business advocacy groups.

Polis’ office announced Tuesday morning that he will step down as chief of staff on Sept. 13. UCHealth, in an internal announcement, says Garnett will join the health system as vice president of government and regulatory affairs.

Polis’ new chief of staff will be David Oppenheim, who served as the deputy to Garnett, handling legislative and policy affairs. Before that, he was director of operations and cabinet affairs. He joined the governor’s office as legislative director in 2019.

“I thank Alec Garnett for his incredible leadership and hard work for the people of Colorado, culminating in a historic special session that successfully cut the property tax rate for every homeowner and small business,” Polis said in a news release.

The measure now needs a final House vote on Wednesday. Should it clear that, it will then face a marathon of votes in the Senate as lawmakers aim to end the special session before Labor Day.

builds upon years of tweaks to property tax policy in the state following voters’ repeal of the residential tax-stabilizing Gallagher Amendment in 2020. If it becomes law, fiscal analysts say it will cut statewide property tax collections by about $254 million, on top of the $1.3 billion cut approved by lawmakers last spring.

For most property owners, the new reductions would cut less than $100 from their tax bills, though the amount depends on local mill levies and the property’s value, among other changes to tax policy.

The true stakes, however, lie in a pair of ballot initiatives that, if passed by voters in November, would force even deeper cuts to property tax collections. The conservative proponents of initiatives 50 and 108, led by Advance Colorado, have repeatedly declared that they will yank the measures — characterized by opponents as “catastrophic” and “draconian” — if the bill becomes law.

So far, it has gone through relatively minor changes as lawmakers seek to protect the terms of the deal, even as the terms continue to rankle many legislators. Those who are critical feel they’ve been called to rubber-stamp a preordained outcome.

State Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat who said she hasn’t made up her mind on the bill, characterized it as picking between cutting revenues for local services now or being forced to consider much heavier cuts if the ballot initiatives pass.

“This a really hard position for us legislators to be in,” Kipp said. “Do we take a little bit of harm now — or risk a lot of harm later?”

The bill had faced stiff opposition from fire districts, and Democratic lawmakers lined up to voice support for firefighters Tuesday. The property tax-funded fire departments have struggled to keep up with rising costs, and further cuts would hurt service, a slew of chiefs testified Monday.

Garry Briese, executive director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, said Tuesday afternoon that they were close to reaching a deal with legislative leaders to prioritize sustainable funding for the fire districts in some way in the future. That would be short of the chiefs’ hopes for a carve-out from funding cuts altogether, but it would get them closer to their long-term goals, he said.

“We’re now involved in developing these solutions, instead of reacting to imposed solutions,” Briese said.

The House also passed a proposed ballot measure Tuesday that, if approved later by the state’s voters, would require local voter approval of any future statewide property tax changes passed through ballot measures.

Democrats have supported it as a way to undercut the potential for future property tax wars, but Republicans have sharply opposed the bill, suggesting it would blow up the deal now on the table. The measure would need one Senate Republican to back it to reach the supermajority threshold for a ballot referral, giving it difficult odds to passage.

Tuesday’s passage of the main tax relief measure sets up a final, recorded vote Wednesday that will give a full picture of Democratic and Republican support, which was clouded somewhat by Tuesday’s procedural tallies that included voice and bundled votes.

Bills rarely die if they reach the final floor vote, and even progressive skeptics of the deal said the measure was likely to clear the chamber Wednesday. Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, said he supported Advance Colorado’s ballot initiatives, but he’s decided to back the property tax deal.

Still, several Democratic legislators said they remained undecided, even as they acknowledged the risk of the ballot measures passing. And Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs Republican, said he welcomed anything that would blow up the deal and keep the measures on the ballot.

Asked about the bill’s chances of passing the House, Speaker Julie McCluskie said late Tuesday afternoon that she was confident.

Should that happen, the bill will then move to the Senate. If lawmakers want to finish the special session by Thursday at the earliest, the bill will need to first pass a Senate committee and then an initial vote before the full Senate by the end of Wednesday.

That would set up a final vote — and, potentially, final negotiations with the House — for Thursday.

State lawmakers are set to convene Aug. 26. They will need to meet for at least three days to pass any bills — and in the dog days of summer, with many soon leaving office, limiting the session’s length will surely be the goal.

As pressure has built for a special session, officials in recent days have outlined a potential $270 million in property tax cuts that they hope will head off Initiative 50, which has qualified for the ballot, and Initiative 108, which is under petition signature review.

Those measures are being run by the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado. They would cut tax bills by billions of dollars and put a strict cap on property tax growth at the local level. The prospect has worried a wide range of advocacy groups and the mayors of the state’s three largest cities, who pushed this week for a special session.

The initiatives, if successful, could save property owners hundreds of dollars per year — at the cost of potentially billions of dollars from state services as the state backfills some of local entities’ and schools’ lost revenue. The alternative deal on the table for the special session, at bottom, would save about $100 a year for the owner of a $500,000 home with an average mill levy.

Polis said he would not sign any new legislation until the measures are formally pulled from the November ballot, as Advance Colorado’s leader has agreed to do.

“Whatever the level of risk is — whether it’s a 50/50 chance it passes, or a 30% chance it passes — (these initiatives) would result in immediately reestablishing the budget stabilization factor (for schools), defunding higher education, gutting local transportation funding and much more,” Polis said in an interview with The Denver Post on Thursday morning. “If we can find a way to provide a property tax cut that we can afford, (and) that protects funding for our schools and special districts, we should certainly take the opportunity to do that.”

In a statement, Senate President Steve Fenberg called the ballot measures “reckless and irresponsible” and said they “pose an existential threat to critical state and local services.” It was incumbent on the legislature to do what it could to stop them from going into effect, he said.

He and House Speaker Julie McCluskie, both Democrats, each said it was now up to elected leaders to “govern responsibly.”

Republican leadership in the House and the Senate said in separate statements that they looked forward to another opportunity to further lower property tax burdens in the state.

If passed, the initiatives filed by Advance Colorado would lower property tax rates across the state and strictly cap how much property tax revenue can grow in the future. Advocates argue those moves would stop runaway property tax bills if Colorado goes through another boom in home values.

Michael Fields, the president of the Advance Colorado Institute, has promised to pull the measures if lawmakers pass new reforms his group finds agreeable — but they would have to do it by the state’s Sept. 6 ballot-setting deadline.

In a news release Thursday, the group called the proposed agreement “a permanent solution to Colorado’s property tax crisis” and said it wouldn’t bring similar ballot measures in the future — as long as the government did not change the provisions.

“This property tax cut and cap agreement provides the permanent tax relief that Coloradans have been demanding and will prevent future spikes in property tax bills going forward,” Fields said in the release. “This is the result of two years of consistent pro-taxpayer advocacy to ensure that we can solve the current property tax crisis for the benefit of Colorado families and businesses.”

Seeking long-term solutions

The special session will be the second one Polis has called in the past 10 months to address property tax policy. Lawmakers passed relief for homeowners and renters in a four-day session last November.

In between, the legislature met for its regular 120-day session during the winter and spring, in which property tax negotiations also played a defining role and resulted in lawmakers in May passing Senate Bill 233, a $1.3 billion cut.

Lawmakers and advocates have searched for a long-term solution since voters in 2020 repealed the Gallagher Amendment, which held residential and non-residential taxes in a fixed ratio to benefit homeowners. Its repeal introduced new volatility for tax bills while benefiting some tax districts.

Many lawmakers thought they’d reached a solution with this year’s SB-233, which cut tax rates and capped how much tax collections could grow in subsequent years. In unveiling it at an early May press conference, Polis declared that “white smoke has emerged,” a reference to the Catholic tradition used to announce a new pope has been chosen.

But negotiations with Advance Colorado and the business-oriented group Colorado Concern, the initiatives’ backers, broke down, and they continued to press the ballot measures.

On Thursday, Polis described the Senate bill as coming “very close” to ending the property tax wars.

The Groundhog Day-like nature of the legislature’s property tax debates — coupled with simmering distrust from the spring negotiations — left many Democratic lawmakers frustrated as momentum built for a special session this week. They privately vented at the deal they thought had been struck several months ago. And they expressed resentment at feeling trapped between facing ballot measures that could crater the state’s budget and negotiating for further tax cuts with wealthy business groups.

“We do feel like someone is going back on a deal, and that, frankly, is not how we operate in this building,” said Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, during a meeting this week in the Capitol of . “I am less agreeable, personally — (though) I know different people in my caucus have different opinions — to letting this deal be continually revived to the detriment of our state and our citizens.”

Others, though, said the risks of the ballot measures were too great. Several referenced polling they’d seen that showed the measures didn’t have a strong chance of passing but weren’t assured of defeat, either.

New proposal’s details

On Monday, Mark Ferrandino, the governor’s budget director, outlined the proposed tax policy revisions to the commission, which comprises lawmakers, local elected officials and others close to the issue.

Ferrandino said the proposal would would reduce property tax collections statewide by about $270 million, versus the estimated drop of more than $2.1 billion under Initiative 108. Strong growth in property values would help offset the deficit for local taxing entities, he said.

The special session proposal would push down residential assessment rates, which determine how much of a property’s value is considered in tax calculations, by about three-tenths of a percentage point. The bill outline also calls for limiting the growth of property tax revenues to 10.5% every two years for taxing districts besides schools. The law passed in May had capped growth at 5.5% per year, or 11% per two-year cycle.

For school districts, the new proposed cap is 12% per two-year assessment cycle, or 6% per year, though districts would be allowed to grow faster if inflation and population growth reach certain levels.

The measure would take effect for property tax year 2025, which taxpayers generally would be billed for in 2026.

Advance Colorado’s Initiative 50, a constitutional amendment that requires 55% support to pass, would cap property tax revenue increases at 4%, including for local school districts. Initiative 108, a statutory measure that requires simple majority support, would lower the assessment rate for both residential properties and commercial properties.

Several lawmakers have said they want some guarantee that any new deal comes with more than a handshake promise that the ballot box would stop being a battleground for property tax policy. Polis said Thursday that he generally would be open to some kind of statutory language aimed at preventing future “divisive measures” on the ballot.

Ann Terry, executive director of the Colorado Special District Association, said she remained skeptical of the proposal for the special session and how elected officials will ensure the initiatives never make it to the ballot. Her organization’s membership includes hospital districts, fire districts, water and sewer utilities, and more — all of which rely on property taxes for funding.

“We think there needs to be details to the outlined framework,” Terry said. “This feels like death by a thousand cuts.”

Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.

America’s future fiscal outlook is disastrous but forgotten on the campaign trail this year.

The national debt is setting historic records, but both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have ignored plans that focus on the United States’ financial future. In the recent presidential debate, both candidates blamed the other for ignoring our debt Armageddon. Both parties have buried their heads in the sand. 

This past week the International Monetary Fund warned that America’s increasing debt must be “urgently addressed.”

The pandemic and previous years’ deficits have taken the nation’s debt today to just shy of $35 trillion, an increase of over 514% since 2000 and a dangerous record.

Our national debt was $5.67 trillion in the year 2000, $13.6 trillion in 2010, $26.51 trillion in 2020.

Our debt is over 33% of the entire world’s combined debt of $91 trillion.

Next year, interest payments alone on our debt will top $1 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s fiscal watchdog, defines national debt as the amount of financial liability that the federal government holds. This includes public debt, mostly U.S Treasury bonds and intragovernmental accounts, primarily Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Debt is not to be confused with our budget deficits. A deficit is when the government spends more money than it takes in a particular fiscal year. Debt is the total value of deficits we have accumulated over time.

Just how much is $35 trillion of debt? It����ap hard to conceptually grasp just what “$1 trillion” means. 

Let me help:

Today our national debt is larger than the economies of China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom combined.

If you go back in time one billion seconds, you’d be around the year 2002, going back one trillion seconds, you’d land around 30,000 B.C.

If you spent $1 every second around the clock, it would take you 31,688 years to spend $1 trillion. 

The amount of national debt is enough to cover tuition for a four-year college degree for every U.S. high school graduate for over 106 years. 

Take a look at these stunning statistics:

Each U.S. citizen’s share of the debt is $101,000; the debt per taxpayer is $259,000.

If every U.S. household contributed $1,000 per month toward paying down the national debt it would take over 22 years.

We are approaching a dangerous tipping point: A recent survey by the CBO is already warning that soon foreign adversaries like China will exploit our debt crisis, crippling our status as the world’s strongest superpower.

Politicians and all Americans should be alarmed. There’s a large number of aging baby boomers who are becoming more reliant on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which will further raise the U.S. debt.

The CBO’s long-term budget outlook expresses other alarming consequences of a large and growing federal debt, there are four major ones: lower national savings and income; higher interest payments, which lead to large tax hikes and spending cuts; and decreased ability to respond to future economic problems. In essence, a greater risk of a fiscal crisis.

“The U.S. federal debt is on an unsustainable path, and has been for some time,” Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chairman, was recently quoted as saying. However, when the country eventually pulls out of its current high interest rates, Americans will be left with a debt hangover. 

Addressing the national debt requires a multifaceted approach. Policymakers must consider both revenue and expenditure measures to begin to change the debt trajectory. 

To name just a few: 

Tax reform: Comprehensive tax reform to help increase revenues. A more progressive tax code can help address income inequality

Spending cuts: Reducing government spending is another key component. However indiscriminate cuts can harm vulnerable populations and thus hinder economic growth    

It is projected that the federal government will spend over $1.6 trillion more this fiscal year alone than it collects in revenues. About $870 billion of this is interest we’re paying on money we have already borrowed. 

Entitlement reform: Security Medicare and Medicaid are significant drivers of the debt. This could include legislation such as raising the retirement age, adjusting benefits but not cutting them and implementing more cost-saving measures in health care. 

Promoting economic growth: Promoting robust economic growth is crucial to managing the national debt. But we can never sustain a strong economy driven by over 70% of consumer spending.

Political will: Political posturing will not keep the American dream alive. Addressing the national debt will also require a strong political will and bipartisan cooperation. The real dialogue now is to find real solutions. Political posturing will not keep the American dream alive.

Thomas Jefferson, who died deeply in personal debt, warned that “excessive debt is a means by which governments oppress the people. No nation has a right to create debt for periods longer than the majority of citizens contracting the debt can expect to live.” 

Jefferson and the other founding fathers are probably turning over right now in their graves. This is not the country they envisioned when they laid down their lives.

We have kicked the can down the road long enough, putting our children in the difficult position of having to solve this catastrophic problem. 

A national debt crisis is coming, politicians need to recognize the urgency. We are leaving our children with a debt so large that their future standard of living, and opportunities will be significantly compromised. 

For our children’s sake, let����ap stop and pick up the can before our road ends, and they are left to clean up after our extravagant selfish party.

Jim Martin is a past Regent of the University of Colorado. He can be reached at jimmartinesq@gmail.com.

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