Coming on top of failed attempts to cut away at public broadcasting and eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, first-year Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn is now vowing to bring forth an “American Taxpayer Bill of Rights” to restore fiscal “discipline” in Congress.
Perhaps someone should remind Lamborn of the reception that other states gave to Colorado TABOR clones just last year.
Maine voters rejected a similar broad-reaching amendment with a 54 to 46 percent margin. In Oregon, voters quashed it 71 percent to 29 percent. And in Nebraska, voters rejected a TABOR-like law in a 70 to 30 percent landslide.The lesson? Sometimes people actually prefer paying taxes to living in communities with crumbling roads and bridges and schools, and no cash for parks, public safety, to pay the cost of new growth and such.
As El Paso County Democratic Party Chairman John Morris told the Gazette of Colorado Springs , “It’s awfully easy to advocate things that won’t happen.”
Cara DeGette is a senior fellow at Colorado Confidential, and a columnist and contributing editor at the Colorado Springs Independent. E-mail her at cdegette@coloradoconfidential.com
