To recap, TABOR, among other safeguards, limits government spending forcing the legislature to live within reasonable budget constraints and not spending every penny that comes in. That wasn’t good enough for Kennedy and her ilk, who pushed for K-12 spending to increase every year at a faster rate than the budget was growing. This ultimately squeezed all other programs.

 

Now today, our inept state Treasurer has an editorial in the current edition of the Denver Business Journal, entitled “Colorado: Don’t follow the California road to financial ruin.” This is an interesting argument because many Colorado conservatives use the same comparison for keeping TABOR. California is an example of spending every taxpayer dime that came in, spawning new programs, new employees and higher pay. When the economy nosedived, the state was forced to make drastic cuts. If TABOR was in place to limit government spending, many of those programs wouldn’t have been created and the budget would have been much less bloated.

 

In her editorial, Kennedy is blaming California’s sole budget limiter for its incredible fiscal crisis. The whole premise of her argument is completely asinine and unbecoming of our state Treasurer. Kennedy blames California’s Proposition 13 saying it “eroded the state’s fiscal foundation, leaving it vulnerable during economic downturns like the one we’re in now.” This generalization is both reckless and irresponsible without any explanation of what Prop. 13 actually does.

 

For background, Proposition 13 was passed in 1978 by 65% of the voters. It essentially does three things. First, it put a cap on property taxes at 1% of the assessed value. Second, it limited the growth of the assessed value to 2% for the present owner. And finally, and probably most upsetting to Kennedy, it requires a two-thirds majority for the legislature to raise taxes.

 

It appears Kennedy’s whole argument is that California needs the ability to raise taxes in order to get it out of its fiscal mess. That is absolutely frightening. Could you imagine if California had the ability to float the property taxes or was collecting more money during the good years? Their budget shortfall would be even more astronomical.

 

It’s time for Kennedy to come clean. It’s time to admit that she clearly does think that raising taxes amid an extraordinary budget downturn is what the government needs to survive and TABOR’s mandate that voters approve all tax increases is flat out wrong. If that isn’t what she meant by this editorial, then she’s simply inept in her rationale and unable to handle the demands as our state’s chief financial officer.