We Want Less California, More Colorado
By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news about Senate Bill 228 – the bill that makes us in Colorado a bit more like bankrupt California. What the bill does is repeal the Bird-Arveschoug 6% spending limit that we’ve been living and growing under since 1992. Governor Ritter of course signed the bill, thus sending Colorado the way of even larger deficits, more spending, and higher taxes; in other words, the Californication of Colorado. Barry Poulson warned of this back in March saying,
“The bill would eliminate what has proven to be a very effective constraint on the growth in general fund expenditures, and also on how state revenues are allocated between transportation and capital projects, and other expenditures.”
Governor Ritter, let me make this clear: This bill does to Colorado what fame and fortune does to child stars in Hollywood — sends them on a drug induced bender of late night partying that inevitably kills their careers and nearly their lives. Hopefully TABOR will provide the necessary rehab for us to recover. That is until they kill that too.
Actually, there’s one lesson we CAN learn from California: how to get rid of the Colorado Supreme Court justices who provided cover for this power grab by Governor Ritter and the Colorado Legislature.
Ritter and his cronies would not have dared eliminate Arveschoug-Bird without knowing that the current majority on Colorado’s Supreme Court would quash any constitutional challenges to this bill (SB-228). Although most legal scholars agree that TABOR incorporated existing limits (including those set by Arveschoug-Bird) on spending, THIS Supreme Court has NEVER ruled in favor of TABOR – making a legal challenge an exercise in futility.
Until Colorado voters exercise their rights and vote “NO” on retaining these “unjust justices” in office, their constitutional rights will continue to be violated.
For more information, view the article at Clear The Bench Colorado http://www.clearthebenchcolorado.org/2009/06/02/learning-from-the-california-experience-how-voters-can-restore-accountability-to-an-out-of-control-judiciary/
05 Jun 2009 at 1:28 am
Far from “loosening Colorado’s fiscal knot”, Ritter’s signing SB-228 into law just digs a deeper hole for Colorado taxpayers.
Reporter Lynn Bartels inadvertently gave the game away with her lead-in to the article:
Gov. Bill Ritter signed a landmark budget reform bill Wednesday, with supporters promising it is the start (to fixing a constitutional mess) that has Colorado headed toward a California kind of economic pickle.
OK, I added the parentheses around the dangling participle – to illustrate the point that Governor Ritter and the bill’s supporters have indeed promised that this bill does have Colorado “headed toward a California kind of economic pickle.” Can’t say they didn’t warn you…
The sad thing is, even “Backdoor Bill” Ritter and the spendaholics in the Colorado Legislature could not be going about gutting TABOR and eliminating the Arveschoug-Bird spending limits without being aided and abetted by the partisan majority on the Colorado Supreme Court.
Note that it was only AFTER the Colorado Supreme Court upheld Ritter’s unconstitutional Mill Levy Tax Freeze in March – thus signalling “open season” on TABOR and the rest of the Colorado Constitution – that the thus-emboldened Legislature was clear to introduce SB-228.
For more on how this Colorado Supreme Court majority is taking away your rights – including the right, guaranteed in TABOR, to VOTE on this tax and spending policy change yourself – view the full article at http://www.clearthebenchcolorado.org/2009/06/04/cutting-colorado-fiscal-knot-or-digging-a-deeper-hole-ritter-legislature-eliminate-spending-limit-that-protected-taxpayers/
05 Jun 2009 at 11:23 am
[...] especially my quote at the end. ***Just wanted to re-iterate for our public officials out there. Stop Californicating Colorado! ***I urge you to head over to iVoices.org and check out the overflowing stream of podcasts [...]
10 Jun 2009 at 1:56 pm