Mallory: If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

Jesse Mallory, director of Americans For Prosperity’s Issue Committee, reminds us of the lessons of Novembers past over at CompleteColorado’s Page Two.

He reminds us of what happened back in 05 with Ref C:

In 2005, voters were promised that if the state were allowed to keep the excess revenue that should have been refunded to taxpayers under TABOR, the money would be used to boost education spending. Referendum C was approved, but the money never made it to the classroom. “Spending on programs not associated with Referendum C has grown more than twice as fast as spending on education and health care,” former state Treasurer Mark Hillman noted in 2007.

So why should we trust the politicians this time, especially now that they are considering a special legislative session to make changes to a proposition they approved only a few months ago?

Clearly, backers of Prop CC are worried that voters have caught on to their game, so have floated the possibility of substituting a 5- or 10-year “timeout” for voters to consider instead of the outright elimination scheduled to be voted on in less than four months.

Instead of getting rid of TABOR, Mallory rightly suggests “we should insist that they be smarter about how they spend the billions they already get before asking for more.”

We can’t let the disaster that was Ref C happen again!