May 23, 2006

Voters Won't Vote for Higher Taxes, Will They?

The Tennessean has an editorial today opposing the idea of giving Nashville voters the right to vote on all property tax increases. Acknowledging that the people have the right to amend the city charter with that provision via a petition drive to put the charter change on the November general election ballot, the paper encourages opponents of property tax referendums to prepare to fight the proposal with arguments about "the impact the amendment could have on the police department, fire and ambulance service, garbage pickup, the library system, water services, Metro parks, social services and the courts." The paper's editorial board also worries about "the possibility that Metro voters would never - or only in the face of a dire emergency - approve a property tax increase."

The editorial writers needn't worry about that. And Monday morning I emailed reporter Lee Ann O'Neal, who wrote the paper's two Sunday stories [main, sidebar] about the petition drive, and provided the paper with the facts about the largest ongoing test of whether people will vote for higher taxes and more government spending if given the opportunity. Here is the text of that email:

Lee Ann,

I wrote about your Sunday story about the property tax referendum petition drive, and included some information that you might use in a follow-up about whether people will ever vote to raise their own taxes if given the opportunity.

LINK

Colorado's constitution gives voters there the right to vote on ALL tax increases at the local and county level. They also vote on any proposed increase in government debt, and on spending surplus tax revenue.

As I explained in this research paper published three years ago and extensively updated in September 2005, from November 1993 through November 2004 Colorado voters at the local and county level have faced more than a thousand ballot questions asking their approval for tax increases, debt increases, new taxes and permission to let the government keep and spend surplus revenue.

Anyone who thinks requiring voter approval on tax increases and higher government spending automatically means a "no" vote every time is .. uninformed. In more than a thousand such referenda, Colorado voters said "yes" to higher taxes and more spending more than half of the time.

According to the Colorado Municipal League, voters approved 248 of 459 ballot questions to allow tax increases or new taxes, and rejected 211, a 54 percent approval rate for higher taxes. They also approved debt increases (bond issues) 68 percent of the time, and approved allowing government to spend surplus tax revenue, rather than rebate it to taxpayers, 88 percent of the time.

Yes, giving voters the right to vote on property taxes is a shift from representative democracy to direct democracy on that issue. But it also is a shift toward more participation in government by the people.

If the proposed Nashville charter change is approved by voters and then survives legal challenges, then property tax increases in the future would be proposed by the Metro Council but have to be approved by voters. This would force the Council and the backers of the tax increase to make their case to the people as to why more money was needed.

In the early 1990s, when Colorado voters were considering whether to amend their state constitution to require voter approval of tax increases at the local level, the Rocky Mountain News editorialized against the amendment. But seven years later the paper surveyed the results and changed its mind, saying the provision "strengthens the political process rather than destroys it." The paper continued:

"Shifting responsibility for taxes from politicians to the public hasn't resulted in automatic rejection of every spending plan. But while [the provision] hasn't straitjacketed government, it has accomplished a number of good things. It has heightened interest in elections and government policy; it has given public officials mandates they otherwise would have lacked; it has shrunk voters' sense of helplessness over the use of their hard-earned taxes; and last, but hardly least, it has strengthened the fiscal responsibility of state and local government."