Former Colorado Democratic chairman turned Independent voter and pollster Floyd Ciruli dedicated an entire blog post to admitting that Proposition CC, which would permanently remove the government spending cap, is in trouble.
And, it’s no secret that a special session to amend the CC language or to go for a full repeal of TABOR would be political suicide.
Here is the political wisdom that Ciruli dropped:
“As the 2018 election highlighted, Colorado voters tend to be sympathetic to many local tax proposals, including TABOR overrides from schools, counties, municipalities and others, but are very skeptical of state tax increases.”
And, let’s not forget that giving our refunds back to the state to keep permanently is a tax increase. We also should remember that part of the reason voters approve local tax increases is because they have limitations. Either they are limited in scope (dollars go toward improving buildings in 25 schools, for example) or in time (will sunset after three years) or both.
Not only is CC permanent (no time limit), but we also literally have no way to contain where the spending will go. Maybe it’s education one year and a pet project the next.
Even more damning, Ciruli revealed that a focus group in Adams County, certainly no conservative stronghold, unveiled that voters don’t understand CC, but aren’t interested in repealing TABOR in any way. Here are some of the verbatims:
“When asked about a TABOR override, while there was a lack of understanding on what exactly this ballot question would do, no one in the group supported such an effort: ‘Coloradans are tired of change;’ ‘we are going too far too fast;’ ‘[Colorado] is turning into California.'”
Ouch. Sounds like Democrats, once again, are completely out-of-touch with the average voter.