A new pair of studies by CU’s Leeds School of Business finds Amendment 66, the billion dollar tax increase on the ballot this November, would be a major drag on the Colorado economy, kill private sector jobs, and reduce personal income by almost $2,000.
And it can’t even promise anything in return.
Before we get to all the negatives associated with this billion dollar boondoggle, it’s worth noting the authors of the study can’t even prove that more money will improve education. From the report (emphasis ours):
School funding has long been debated as crucial for improving academic success across the nation’s schools. However, when calculating the correlation between graduation rates and per pupil funding across Colorado school districts from 2007−2012, the relationship between K-12 funding and performance was found to be tenuous.
Who in their right minds would spend a billion dollars on something whose likelihood of success was dubbed “tenuous”? (Well, other than the geniuses who loaned hundreds of millions in tax dollars to Abound Solar and Solyndra)
Now to the negatives.
As the Denver Business Journal reported:
The report said the number of new government jobs would outstrip the number of private-sector job losses in the first three years after the tax goes into effect. But after that, the number of private-sector jobs lost as a result of the passage of Amendment 66 would significantly outpace the number of new government jobs created, the report said.
If the measure passes, the economy would lose $224 million in economic activity, on average, over the first five years and $993 million from 2019 to 2040, the “Economic Impact of Amendment 66” report found.
The private sector job losses were expected to be 13,400 jobs lost, with 6,500 jobs killed in the first five years alone.
Not only will it kill jobs but the tax hike would severely harm personal income. While tax hike proponents have been blasting the airwaves promising that it would only cost the average Coloradan $133 a year, the study says it will actually decrease personal disposable income by almost $2,000 a year.
The bottom line is this billion dollar tax increase will give Colorado families less income and kill jobs, all for the promise of something that the study’s authors say is “tenuous.”
You do the math.