Revenue or Spending

In the ever-going state budget discussion here in Colorado, conservative columnist John Andrews argues in the Denver Post that Colorado doesn't have a revenue problem and should, surprisingly, emulate states like Wisconsin and Texas. My thoughts:

In a column addressing the budgetary challenges facing Colorado, the recommendation that we adopt our tax system from Texas is quite baffling, especially for someone who's generally pretty well informed about issues of politics and government. Texas is currently facing a projected $27 billion shortfall in 2012, which aligns it squarely with the budgetary disasters in states like California and Illinois. This fiscal tsunami is in spite of increased job growth and business relocation to Texas in the past decade. Thus, Texas - which has no "out-of-control spending" and an austere, Colorado-like budget, is clearly inhibited by a revenue problem.

The revenue problem is no different than in Colorado. Certainly, as he notes, spending in Colorado has increased over the years. Yet, his criticism is ignoring a myriad of factors that lead state spending to expand - increased population, increased wear and tear on infrastructure, natural disasters from epic storms to massive fires to uncontrolled pine beetle devastation, greater demands on education for expanded testing and security and special education, rising demands of Medicaid and public health as private sector workers face increasing premiums or lose benefits while wages remain stagnant, etc. Simply put, as the years go on, costs go up. They always have - that's why I used to pay less for everything, and now, even with wages increases, costs have gone up. The economy is so much more complex than Andrews' knowledge of it, and his inability to look beyond a basic prejudice toward taxes is the foundation of the state's revenue problem.

And then we turn to Andrews' mythologized "Reagan" reference as "visionary" in terms of deficits? That's the same Reagan who cut revenue and ballooned not only the deficit but the national debt. That's the same Reagan who sought to repair the budget with eleven subsequent revenue increases between 1983 and 1987, and still left a debt and deficit that cost his successor a second term.

As an educator who urges to my students to be "people on whom nothing is lost," I am worried by voters like Andrews who take an ideological, rather than pragmatic, real-world approach to the budget. His naive recommendations simply validate one of Winston Churchill's greatest insights:

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Coloradan's votes on Ref C & D, their rejection of 60, 61, & and 101, and their election of John Hickenlooper over a notoriously inept and rather clueless GOP field seem to indicate they're not as naive as his friends at CUT (Colorado Union of Taxpayers) and the Independence Institute.

But I still worry.