Smitty's Corner 🇺🇸 🗽🇮🇱🇯🇵🇩🇰🇧🇻❌️

TABOR Committee Voter’s Guide for 2026 Do politicians want more of your money? [O1.1]The answer is obvious, of course they want more of your money. This year’s ballot includes a number of attempts to get it. The TABOR Committee encourages you to vote “NO” on • Amendment 87: The tax scheme that would strip a protection out of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and institute a HUGE tax increase. It would return the state to the failed graduated income tax idea from 40 years ago, cost the average taxpayer $4,000 over the next four years, and damage the state’s economy • Proposition NN: The measure would effectively eliminate any spending limitation on state government and end your TABOR refunds forever. It would raise as much as $1 Billion in new taxes in the first full year. • Proposition 137: It would lower your TABOR refunds by $175 million a year to pay for environmental issues. The legislature already can appropriate funds for these uses. • Ballot Issue 7A: The Colorado Connect (CoCo) rail system would increase sales taxes even more. RTD is operating in the red. A similar plan in California is currently in dire financial and operational straits. CoCo is cuckoo. We encourage you to vote “yes” on Proposition 136, the simple directive to place a cap on income tax rates. Amendment 87 A recent Cato Institute study shows that a graduated income tax scheme is way out of step with the direction that other US states and even foreign countries are moving. It has no provision to adjust income brackets for inflation. What might seem like tax relief now, would become increasingly burdensome on Colorado taxpayers year after year. For more information go to Your Family’s Future Alliance (yourfamilysfuture.org/). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Proposition NN Here’s yet another one supposedly for the children and their teachers. Remember how Amendment 23 and, later, legalizing recreational marijuana were going to add enough to fund schools? Notice that we still need this provision “for the children.” This time, do you really think that they really mean it? NN? NO NO! For more information go to Your Family’s Future Alliance (yourfamilysfuture.org/). Proposition 137 Like so many of the attacks on the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, this initiative as described in the ballot language begins with the claim that it will not raise taxes. That claim comes just before the proposal to “to keep and spend a portion of revenue from the state sales tax on sporting goods and equipment.” Too clever by half. One side of the mouth says we won’t raise taxes while the other side proposes to keep and spend revenue from the sales of sporting goods and equipment—money that would otherwise go into the general fund from which TABOR refunds are calculated. A more candid way of saying that would be to say that we’re not going to raise your taxes, but we are going to keep money that would otherwise be refunded to you. The distinction is either intended to be too subtle for people to discern, or it’s a twisting of language into a simple lie. Ballot Issue 7A The ballot language asks if passenger rail district taxes may be raised by $295 million annually “and by whatever amounts are raised annually thereafter.” Are they really asking us to sign a blank check? It’s unfortunate for supporters that this proposed train system for the front range called Colorado Connect, CoCo (for short and for cute), so nearly resembles coo-coo. Ridership for the current RTD rail system is estimated at maybe 16% to 17[O2.1]%. Now we’re being asked to spend nearly $1 billion on another rail system in the interest of reducing front range motor vehicle traffic. Just imagine the rewards we could realize if we attained 17% usage of a billion-dollar expenditure. While you’re stuck in I-25 traffic, you could be watching a near-empty train blowing by. Proposition 136 This entire ballot question is expressed in one sentence. This measure is expressed simply because it is simple. Cap our income tax rate at its current 4.4%. That means $4.40 out of every $100 of net income. This is where we get to affirm our opposition to higher income taxes. Make that affirmative statement by voting “YES.” thetaborfoundation.org/tabor…