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Lawmakers shy away from repeals
Herald Denver Bureau
Ritter
Instead, one of the Legislature's budget experts predicts Colorado will "muddle through" another crisis year. Lawmakers learned two weeks ago that they will have to cut $384 million from the budget for the year that started Wednesday.
"We can do it this year," said Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, a member of the Joint Budget Committee. "We can find the money, but it's going to be difficult."
Finding $384 million might be simple compared with finding a long-term solution to the perpetual budget trauma that plagues Colorado. A group will start meeting this week to find a solution, but even its leader doubts a compromise can be struck in 2010, an election year.
Court decision granted powerOn June 25, Ritter asked his Cabinet for cuts of as much as 10 percent, including permanent cuts in the size of government and the number of government jobs. He specifically said he did not want to raise money by repealing tax breaks.
"Everybody thinks this is an inferior way to approach this, and I tend to agree," Ritter said.
Pommer agrees, too.
A state Supreme Court decision in March gave the Legislature the power to repeal tax breaks without asking permission from voters, and Democrats quickly put it to use by suspending a tax break for cigarettes. But they have little appetite to go after some of the bigger tax exemptions, which include breaks for food and medicine. Several tax breaks benefit farmers and ranchers, but they are not as large.
"You start off with this list that looks like it's a billion dollars, and very quickly you realize it's not," Pommer said.
Pommer's colleague on the Joint Budget Committee, Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, has reached the same conclusion.
"I've looked at those, and every one of them has unintended consequences," Marostica said. "They're set up to benefit special interest groups, and if you start lopping them off, they're going to start screaming."
Ritter and Joint Budget members are working individually on plans to balance the 2009-10 budget, and they will meet later this summer - they haven't scheduled a time yet - to arrive at a formal plan.
Looking for big fixBut for some lawmakers, the present budget isn't the problem. Instead, it's the perpetual state of crisis that Colorado finds itself in.
On Wednesday at the state Capitol, a group of six lawmakers and 10 citizens will start several months of meetings of the "Long-Term Fiscal Stability Commission."
The group will study all options, from those tax exemptions to spending cuts to the rollback of the favorite laws of the left and right, including the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights and Amendment 23, which requires spending on schools.
It's a tall order for a group that includes liberal Democrats and conservatives who think the smaller government is, the better.
"I want to get all this philosophy, regardless of where it comes from, out on the table," said the chairman, Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder.
For panel member Amy Oliver Cooke of the right-leaning Independence Institute, the answer starts with spending cuts.
The first step should be to provide detailed information to the public on how the government spends money, said Cooke, who runs the Colorado Transparency Project at the Independence Institute. Until that happens, she doesn't have recommendations on what to cut from the budget.
"I don't know, and I won't know until I know where every single dime is spent," Cooke said.
But for Carol Hedges of the left-leaning Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, it's a question of revenue.
"We've got to learn the lesson that we cannot cut our way out of the problems we have," said Hedges, who is not on the commission but will make a presentation this week.
For one short-term answer, Hedges suggests hiring more auditors at the Department of Revenue to go after people who don't pay their taxes.
In the longer term, the state simply needs more revenue, because every spending cut hurts someone, she said.
"A kid is only 3 one time. If they don't have preschool that will help them enter school and learn, that opportunity is gone forever," Hedges said.
Democrats expanded the number of slots for preschoolers from poor families after they took over the Legislature in 2004, but they had to roll back many of their programs for children to cope with the budget crisis this year.
TABOR not a priorityCooke, a "huge supporter of TABOR," might have more in common with the committee's Democratic leaders than is apparent.
For years, Democrats have chafed at TABOR's limits on government revenue, but Heath says the amendment won't make a difference to Colorado's budget for two to five years, because the economy will recover so slowly that TABOR won't come into play.
"We don't have a gun at our head with TABOR right now," Heath said.
Heath also cited a general feeling that TABOR's requirement of a vote of the people on any tax increase should be left in place.
Nothing about TABOR prevents lawmakers from asking voters for a tax increase, Cooke said.
"My feeling is, this is a bad time to ask Coloradans for a tax increase. But the beauty of TABOR is that you can ask," Cooke said.
Whatever the commission decides, it probably will need voter approval because of TABOR.
Ritter is interested in the committee, but he wants to send something to the voters in 2011 - a year after the governor's race.
Heath won't be pushing for quick adoption of whatever his panel decides.
"You don't want to do it in a year when we're electing a governor and a senator. It would just get lost," Heath said.
For Pommer, there's another reason he thinks solutions will have to wait until 2011.
"Nobody in an election year is going to come out and say, 'Let's raise taxes.' And nobody is going to say, 'Let's shut down colleges,'" Pommer said.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
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