TABOR a bad idea, group says
Janice Francis-Smith, The Journal Record
February 17, 2006
OKLAHOMA CITY -- The Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, plan proposed for Oklahoma is even worse than the TABOR plan adopted in Colorado, members of the Alliance for Oklahoma’s Future said Thursday. But getting that message across to the public is going to be an uphill battle, said a fiscal analyst from Colorado.
"We’ve heard over the last several months that yes, there were problems with TABOR in Colorado, but we’ve fixed those problems," said David Blatt, public policy director for Tulsa-based Community Action Project, a think tank focused on tax and budget policies designed to reduce poverty. Community Action Project conducts much of the research for the newly formed Alliance, which seeks to educate lawmakers and
others about tax and budget issues.
"Our analysis shows that when you look at State Question 726, it’s the same old TABOR," Blatt said. "Our constitutional proposal fails to fix the fatal flaws of Colorado’s law, and in some ways it adds additional constraints and rigidities and problems they have not even had in Colorado."
An initiative petition process created State Question 726, which is currently before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The measure would prohibit Oklahoma state government from growing faster than the rate of inflation and population growth. Revenue collections in excess of TABOR limitations would be rebated to taxpayers. Colorado is the only state in the union to have enacted such an extensive TABOR plan, adopted in 1992. But last year, Colorado voters agreed to suspend the rebate portion of the plan for five years.
While TABOR proponents point to the economic growth Colorado has experienced over the past decade, TABOR opponents highlight how funding levels for child immunizations, higher education and other government service have slipped over the same time period. Colorado's average teacher pay, for instance, fell from 30th in 1992 to 50th in 2001.
After the national economic downturn, which led to severe budget cuts in nearly every state, Colorado’s TABOR rebate plan prohibited the state from replenishing its budget when the economy took a turn for the better, which is why voters suspended the rebate provision last year.
Rapid population growth during the 1990s helped Colorado to mask some of the problems with TABOR for a time, said Carol Hedges, a fiscal analyst at the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute. But TABOR is based on a flawed formula, she said, because inflation and population growth have little to do with the cost of providing government services.
While health-care costs account for about 7 percent of the Consumer Price Index, Hedges said, health care accounts for about 22 percent of the state budget. TABOR limits the size of the "pie" that is the state budget, she said, and as items like health care and education grow faster than other budget items they crowd out other government services.
Unlike Colorado’s TABOR, however, Oklahoma’s plan would allow state agencies and the Legislature to skirt spending caps by increasing fees for things like hunting licenses or driver’s licenses. And though Colorado voters were able to suspend their TABOR plan for five years in order to recover the state’s economy, Oklahoma’s plan would prohibit voters from suspending TABOR provisions for more than one year at a time.
TABOR also invites taxpayers to sue the government if they feel the spending limits have been violated, said Blatt.
"TABOR proponents talk about making government more accountable, but what actually happened with this constitutional invitation for lawsuits is that rather than having elected representatives determine the budget every year, the budget will be dragged into annual lawsuits and the courts will be deciding the budget," Blatt said.
But opponents of TABOR are at a disadvantage when it comes to public relations, Hedges said. Supporters of the measure ask people if they want smaller government, knowing full well that’s what most people want. But it gets kind of complicated when explaining what’s wrong with the TABOR proposal, she said.
"You’ll have the fight of your life on your hands," Hedges said. "You guys (members of the press) are here to listen to us talk about tax policy because you get paid to do it. Most people believe that they elect representatives to deal with the complicated minutia of tax and spending and budgets. They really don’t want to have to get into the complicated nature of all of the tradeoffs."
In Colorado, the measure had failed on the ballot twice, in 1988 and 1990, before it succeeded in 1992. That year, Colorado turned out more voters for Ross Perot than any other state, and many voters came out to weigh in on an "anti-gay amendment," she said, "so it got by a little bit under the radar."
TABOR supporters were able to simplify and crystallize their message so voters could relate to it, she said.
"They had a big giant-sized pig that they pulled around behind a pickup truck, and talked about the pork of government," Hedges said. "TABOR has nothing to do with being specific about eliminating inefficient or pork barrel projects. It is an across-the- board machete that whacks away at government of all types, not inefficient or pork barrel types of projects. But that pig is a really powerful image, and it’s harder for people like David (Blatt) and I to come up with an equivalent big image."
