Three days ago, we told our readers about a coming tax increase “compromise” between Liberal Loon Carol Hedges of the Fiscal Policy Institute and Boulder liberal Rollie “Mr Burns” Heath.

That compromise has now been filed with the Legislative Council by Rollie Heath. In fact, you can watch the whole compromise play out in initiatives filed on the Legislative Council's website.

It all began back in early 2010 with the creation of a “Fiscal Reform” subcommittee of the Colorado Reform Roundtable, a collection of liberal interests looking to find ways to increase taxes. Michael Moore might call it the “Give Me the Cash In Your Pockets” subcommittee.

This tax hiking cabal met many times over the following months coming up with six different tax initiatives, with most calling for approximately $1.5 billion in new taxes every year. 

Political observers will remember that this exact move was called out in October of last year by www.secrettaxhike.com. With op-eds in the Denver Post and radio ads, voters were warned this was coming.

(Thank you to a loyal reader for reminding us about the “secret tax hike” prognostication. As always, we encourage our readers to help us fill in the gaps.)

The tax hike proponents began their march towards raising taxes submitting six initiatives on February 3, 2011, but they hit a bit of a bump in the road during the title setting hearing. 

In an attempt to be slick they tried to get an initiative past the title setting board calling it a tax “fairness” iniative. In that title board meeting, WhoSaidYouSaid caught them on tape admitting, in fact, it was about raising taxes.

These initiatives landed with a great big “Thud!” with Governor Hickenlooper making clear the public would never support them. 

Cue Mr. Burns, we mean Sen. Rollie Heath (D-Boulder), who rode in proposing an increase of $500 million in new taxes that would sunset after three years.

You might notice the rather small crowd of legislative supporters standing behind him at the press conference announcing his initiative. But that's a few more supporters than Carol Hedges' proposal, leading to backroom truffle shuffling. 

And now they've come together, making a deal to support the $500 million in new taxes permanent.

Conservatives need to pay attention: liberals are trying to sneak through new permanent taxes in an off-year election. 

Let's make sure that fiscal fungus fails.