I should have said that he is Libertarian in his views. Meaning that he would gladly strip the government down to nothing in revenues. I am conservative but I also believe that there are limits. He does not. This was not a slow grow measure (TABOR), it was a "ratchet the governement down year after year regardless of growth" idea. The $3200 refund that the opponents trumpeted was a total lie. In order for a taxpayer to qualify for $3200 over 5 years, they would have to have been in 16 different special interest groups all at the same time. No person exists in Colorado. Most people's rebate would have been modest- around $40 year. Not exactly enough to fund the increase in gas prices!
The other issue being discussed here is actually the more serious one, IMO- and that is the shift in our state from solidly Republican to , at best 50-50. I blame this on the influx of Californians but I think it is also attributable to a weak state party on our side. Ted Halaby stepped down and we have new leadership but it remains to be seen whether we can regain control of either the house or the senate. Plus, Bill Ritter is running for governor and could be very strong- he is the former DA of Denver and is pro-life.We have some big battles ahead.
To the contrary, Douglas Bruce believes there are limits. That's what TABOR was all about, to limit the growth of government in Colorado.
What's particularly libertarian about that? Isn't that one of the main planks of conservatism, if not the (pre-Bush era) Republican Party?
The so-called ratchet effect is nothing more than using last year's revenues and expenditures as a base for the next year, adjusting for population growth and inflation. The liberals in the media have been pointing to this "fault" in TABOR which needs correcting, even though thry were totally against the whole thing - including the right of citizens to vote on tax increases - when Amendment 1 came to the ballot in 1992 and claimed, along with Gov. Roy Romer, that passage of TABOR would destroy the state.
There followed some of the most prosperous years in Colorado history, with the state taking in so much in taxes that they had to be rebated to the citizens.
Unfortunately, anti-TABOR politicians of both parties managed to divert much of the excess revenue that should have been refunded to ordinary taxpayers to their friends who got them elected, which is why nobody in the state qualifies for the full amount of tax rebate they have coming -- and why neither side in the Ref C debate was speaking the truth about how much it was going to cost the "average" taxpayer. Too many skeletons in that closet, so just keep the door shut.