September 15, 2003

A Hyped Poll Says Nothing Surprising

Reader Jason Currey emailed me the link to an interesting story from today's Rocky Mountain News about a poll of Coloradans' attitudes about the state's Taxpayers Bill of Rights amendment, which forces tax cuts or rebates if tax revenue growth exceeds the growth rate of inflation and population.

According to the story:

Coloradans like the money that ends up back in their pockets when the state is flush with revenue, but a surprising number might be willing to give up some of it. In a recent poll, 46 percent of respondents said they like the TABOR Amendment, which mandates those taxpayer refunds, the way it is. They don't want it changed. But a surprising 43 percent would let the government keep the surplus - provided they would still get to vote on tax increases, according to the random telephone sampling of 402 Coloradans. The poll, taken for an unidentified client by Talmey-Drake Research and Strategy Inc., has a plus or minus error margin of 4.9 percentage points.

Because of recent tough economic times that have forced state lawmakers to trim or shift more than $2 billion in tax spending from this and last year's budget, a number of people are looking at changing the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights and other budget-restrictive laws. State Treasurer Mike Coffman, the Bell Policy Center, the Bighorn Institute and state lawmakers all are studying the interaction among TABOR, school funding under Amendment 23, and residential property tax restrictions under the Gallagher Amendment. TABOR, approved by voters in 1992, lets voters decide on tax increases and limits government spending. The government itself can increase spending only by inflation and growth - and all excess taxes collected must be returned to taxpayers.

That amounted to $927.2 million in 2002, based on surplus money in the 2000-01 fiscal year - an average return of $207 per person. There is no surplus to return this year or next, however, because of the state's tight fiscal situation. 'We don't expect to have refunds going out again until 2007, based on our most recent fiscal estimates," said Nancy McCallin, chief budget officer for Gov. Bill Owens.

... Wade Buchanan, president of the Bell Policy Center, a research and advocacy group that has studied TABOR, said the poll shows people are willing to consider changing TABOR.

The RMN story is much ado about nothing, 'cept there are those in Colorado pushing to "reform" TABOR to the point of meaninglessness, so that state government can resume its profligate ways.

One more point. The RMN story says "recent tough economic times ... have forced state lawmakers to trim or shift more than $2 billion in tax spending from this and last year's budget," and blames it largely on the $927.2 million rebate. But that's not exactly true. Two years ago. the Colorado legislature was supposed to return $927 million in surplus tax revenue to taxpayers - but the legislature instead delayed the rebate one year and spent the money on a list of capital construction projects.

Colorado then had to refund that $927 million to taxpayers in fiscal year 2002, but the economy had slowed and revenue growth had slowed. The legislators had gambled that the economy would produce enough revenue growth to fund the delayed rebate, and they were wrong. That $927 million delayed rebate to taxpayers made up most of Colorado's billion-dollar revenue shortfall in fiscal year 2002. Had the legislature rebated the money a year earlier instead of spending, the FY 2002 shortfall would have been negligible.