Who Pays Colorado Taxes?
Linda Gorman writes about the 38 percent increase in Colorado state spending.
A Thumbnail Guide to Colorado State Government’s Spending Problem
Colorado state government has a spending problem. Although inflation-adjusted per capita personal income in Colorado is still below its 2003 level, state spending has risen every year since 1999. State tax revenue has risen, but it cannot keep up with the spending.
Does Colorado Fail to Spend State Taxes on Services?
Policy debates frequently turn on whether the government is spending at a reasonable level, and that is defined by the relative spending in other states. Relatively low rankings are presumed to indicate of under-spending by Colorado governments. The low rankings, however, are inconsistent with Colorado’s overall ranking for tax burden, which is close to the national median. We examine many claims relating to Colorado government spending overall, in K-12 education, in higher education, and in healthcare, and we conclude that most are misinterpreted or overstated. Colorado collects the national average in taxes,
so how could it be that support for government programs is so uniformly near the bottom?
The Changing Role of Government, 1850 to 2011
A good friend of the Fiscal Policy Center and Free People, Free Markets alumni Tom Ryan has a wonderfully informative organization and website called Reclaiming Moral Government. Tom has created a slide show that displays the changing role of government from 1850 to present day.
Spending Revolt Bus Tour – Denver
The Independence Institute will be participating in the Spending Revolt National Bus Tour and will tentatively be making its first stop in Colorado on Thursday, August 12 in Grand Junction. The red and blue emblazoned Spending Revolt Bus is bringing speakers, events, and a mobile activist hub to hundreds of locations nationwide to demonstrate how the […]
Spending Revolt Bus Tour – Grand Junction, Dillon, and Idaho Springs
The Independence Institute will be participating in the Spending Revolt National Bus Tour and will tentatively be making its first stop in Colorado on Thursday, August 12 in Grand Junction. The red and blue emblazoned Spending Revolt Bus is bringing speakers, events, and a mobile activist hub to hundreds of locations nationwide to demonstrate how the […]
Spending Revolt Bus Tour – Colorado Springs
The Independence Institute will be participating in the Spending Revolt National Bus Tour and will tentatively be making its first stop in Colorado on Thursday, August 12 in Grand Junction. The red and blue emblazoned Spending Revolt Bus is bringing speakers, events, and a mobile activist hub to hundreds of locations nationwide to demonstrate how the […]
Implementing a Just Tax System in Colorado and Strengthening Our Fiscal Constitution
Over much of our history Coloradans have successfully constrained the growth of government through our fiscal constitution. Our State Constitution embodied fiscal rules designed to constrain the power of government to tax and spend, rules requiring a balanced budget, debt limits, and voting and procedural rules. Our fiscal constitution has served us well; our state prospered due in no small part to the fiscal rules embodied in our constitution. However, in the post-WWII period it was clear that our fiscal rules were not constraining the growth of government. Both state and local governments increased taxes and spending grew at rates far in excess of the growth of the private economy. This unconstrained growth of government triggered a tax revolt beginning in the late 1970’s.
