The Trouble with TaBOR- a Voter's Guide

On the fourth of October, I had the pleasure of hearing Brad Young deliver a speech in Lewiston, Maine, about the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TaBOR, which is on the referendum ballot this fall in that state. A former state senator from Colorado, he has seen firsthand the incredible economic damage done by this bill. Lauded by economic conservatives, TaBOR's main effect is its institution of a fixed formula designed to limit government spending, based on only two factors: population, and the rate of inflation (from the Consumer Price Index). Any spending at the state or local level that exceeds the allowance of the formula must be approved by a referendum vote.

Sounds nice, doesn't it? Keeps the size of government spending in neat proportion to the size of the state economy, prevents legislators from adding unnecessary costs to state budgets… a Libertarian dream.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite that way, according to Mr. Young (a Republican).

Let's start the complaint against TaBOR with some facts about Colorado:

Colorado approved TaBOR in 1992, but due to various organizational efforts by the state executive branch, it didn't really start having any effect on the state government until 1996. Ever since then, teacher pay in Colorado has dropped from 30th in the country to 50th- dead last. Colorado University-Boulder has lost 16 tenured professors, six academic programs, and 286 other faculty and staff positions, even as enrollment has grown %20, due to higher education funding that the state has lost. The state had to suspend the requirement that school children by fully vaccinated against whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria, because the state simply couldn't afford immunizations. Colorado dropped from 23rd in prenatal care dollars to 48th, and costs to the mental health system saw the teenage suicide rate absolutely skyrocket.

But how could TaBOR do all of that? It sounded so nice at first. What happens is that the bill does not actually keep government spending level with the economy; it actually shrinks the government, by about 2-3% annually. Because the formula is such a rigid 'one size fits all' approach to local economics, it makes it impossible for the government to react to sudden changes in necessary spending, even if those changes are minor. For example, Colorado's prison population has increased by 25% in the last five years- but where could the government get the money to pay for more guards or a new prison? It had to come from elsewhere in the budget, because otherwise, legislators would have had to wait until the following November to get the question to raise taxes on a referendum, a referendum that probably would have failed anyway.

And where does such money come from? To preface that answer, remember that there are certain things that states must spend a certain amount of money on, the two big ones being Medicare and K-12 education; the federal government requires a certain amount of mandatory spending on those two things. So other things- environmental conservation, mental health treatment, funding for higher education, research grants, art programs, visitor incentives, road and highway maintenance and construction, donations to medical or other scientific research, agricultural incentives -are finding their budgets slashed in order to keep up payment on the mandatory programs, at enormous cost to Colorado's infrastructure. So great is the cost that even Colorado's Chamber of Commerce, as well as most of its business organizations, voted strongly in favor of Prop C- the 2005 referendum that put TaBOR into a 5-year "time out."

If TaBOR had been adopted in Maine in 1992, it would currently have a $470 million deficit. And how is that? Maine's population is relatively stable, but spending is on the rise all over the country, for reasons ranging from the modern energy crunch to trying to keep American colleges competitive, from new security measures to cope with terrorism to increasing necessary programs for the retiring seniors of the Baby Boom generation.

Libertarians and libertarian group and think tanks have been pouring enormous amounts of cash into Maine, and other states that are considered the TaBOR formula, to promote an anti-infrastructure agenda. The ideology of the Libertarian Party is that all government spending essentially hurts the individual- essentially acting as a 'crutch.' This, aside from being a ridiculous oversimplification, is simply untrue. Government spending is not like tossing a dime into an old Dunkin' Donuts cup at the feet of a sleeping indigent; the huge majority of government money goes right back into American communities, in the form of grants, environmental efforts, Social Security, Medicaid, the arts, schools, and so on. This money does not hurt society- it builds it.

Without flexible government spending and reliable tax distribution, things get nasty- like with Colorado, on whom the impact of the early-21st century economic downturn was the greatest, due to the abolition of the government 'safety net,' through, as mentioned above, the loss of strictly infrastructure-related programs. As Brad Young, an economically conservative Republican, shows us, sometimes ideologies need to take a back seat to plain good sense, rationality, and respect for the facts.

Maine gubernatorial challenger Chandler Woodcock, strongly favors the immediate implementation of TaBOR; if he wins, it is only a matter of time before Maine adopts this dangerous and harmful legislation. His opponent, incumbent John Baldacci, opposes TaBOR. So when you go to the polls in November, tell him, and tell Prop 1, what you think of the agenda of wealthy Libertarian special interest groups. And across the country, never let your political leaders, local or otherwise, be fooled into the dreamy descriptions of TaBOR as the fiscal conservatives' dream. In Colorado, it is a nightmare; its devastating impact is systemic in that state.

Don't be fooled- vote no on Prop 1, vote no on Chandler Woodcock, and always, vote no on TaBOR.