Understanding the Constitution: the 14th Amendment: Part I
- November 15, 2021
Below are multiple interactive charts that display data collected from Colorado General Assembly fiscal reports from the 2025 regular legislative session. The state legislature is beyond the midpoint of the 120-day regular session, which started in January and ends in May. The data below presents the FTE/fiscal impact of every proposed legislation introduced in the
READ MOREIncreasing state spending as population grows assumes that larger populations require more government services. This may not always be the case, but it at least refrains from taxing people simply because they work harder.
READ MOREFred Holden (below) and Rob Natelson, both Senior Fellows at the Independence Institute, talk about the famous Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in this interview.
READ MOREOver two decades have passed since Colorado voters adopted The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 1992. TABOR allows government spending to grow each year at the rate of inflation-plus-population. Government can increase faster whenever voters consent. Likewise, tax rates can be increased whenever voters consent. This Issue Paper analyzes TABOR’s effect on state government spending and taxes by examining three decades: The 1983-92 pre-TABOR decade; the first decade of TABOR, 1993-2002; and the second decade, 2003-12. The final decade included the largest tax increase in Colorado history, enacted as Referendum C in 2005. Decade-2 was also marked by increasing efforts to evade TABOR by defining nearly 60% of the state budget as “exempt” from TABOR.
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