As I discussed in my previous post, Iris Lav of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is the designated TABOR hit-woman, just like 2006. In fact, whenever taxpayers get out of line anywhere in the country, there you’ll find Iris Lav to beat them back into line.
Ms. Lav has produced a video for our opponents that describes Colorado’s supposed ruination in considerable detail. In fact, Ms. Lav has variations of the same video that she’s used in other states in which TABOR-like measures are on the ballot. That’s why in 2006, Ms. Lav visited Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and Oregon as well as Maine. That’s why she’s currently in Washington State, where a tax-limitation measure is on the ballot there too. In any fight, count on Ms. Lav to work against the taxpayer.
Ms. Lav has repeated the same Colorado misrepresentations so many times that they’re coming to known as “Lavisms”. Besides the “devastation” of Colorado’s schools, another prominent Lavism is that Colorado’s transportation infrastructure is “crumbling” because the state is unable to fund road repair. This is blatantly wrong and contrary to TABOR’s fundamental principle that voters decide if they want to increase taxes.
This principle is on display in two prominent instances. In 1999, Governor Bill Owens campaigned for and won passage of a $4 billion increase in debt to pay for 27 big highway projects, including a massive reconstruction of Interstate 25 through Denver. In addition, Denver and its suburbs passed an $8.3 billion regional tax increase to pay for mass transit. This taxpayer-approved measure funded in part expansions of Metro Denver’s light rail system.
But the point is clear: if the politicians want more, they simply have to make their case to the taxpayer. In both cases – and each was a massive project – the taxpayers agreed to increases once the case had been made.
As an aside, my stepdaughter attends university in Denver and both my wife and I have had reason to travel in and out of Colorado – including driving out there late last summer. We came down from Nebraska and saw a fair bit of the eastern part of the state. I was very curious to find the crumbling infrastructure that I’d heard so much about. What I saw, however, were roads that are in far better shape than Maine’s.
But we should never let the facts get in the way of a good “Lavism”.
For more information about the Maine Taxpayer Bill of Rights, please visit the TABORNOW website
