Tax fracas just another skirmish in the phony war

When Judge Christina Habas of the Second Judicial District threw out Bill Ritter's property tax freeze last week it was just another political skirmish in a seven years war over broken state budget and revenue mechanisms in which neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to risk political capital to fix. Instead, say some, each side is looking for political sleight of hand.

"One the one hand the Democrats never want admit that what they really want is a more tax money, for laudable purposes of course, but still it's more tax money," says one Democrat from Denver. "On the other hand, Republicans won't address the serious issues regarding TABOR and how it ties the hands of the legislature to actually fix problems."

Some are also saying that the other culprit in the budget mess the state finds itself in is the initiative and amendment process.

"Welcome to direct democracy," says one Republican from Ft Collins. "Why would the legislators want to risk voting on anything when they can just refer the tough questions to the voters?"

A case in point is says one Republican in Douglas County is Amendment 23.

"23 is a perfect example of what's wrong with the political process in Colorado," the Republican told the Inside Edge."We asked the people to approve of the concept of spending more for education without telling them how it's all going to be paid for."

So what the state ends up with are tax increases that aren't called tax increases, spending mandates that tie the legislature and the Governor's hands on the budget and underfunded projects like transportation that no one is willing to fix.

"Why should they fix anything?" our Denver Democrat asks. "Now they can just point fingers at the other side and throw up their hands. It really helps with the base in each party."

What is needed, some would argue, is for the entire budget process and tax policy in Colorado to be put on the table and be decided over from scratch, by officials who are elected and paid to lead. That and initiative and amendment reform.

"It's not going to happen in an election year," says our Denver Democrat "but if we get a sizable majority of Democrats elected this time we might see it next year."