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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-05-01

Democrats Are Coming For Your Wallets

and ignoring their own rules to do it.

Gov. Bill Ritter's plan to generate more property tax income for schools cleared the final legislative hurdle today with narrow passage in the Senate.

The vote was 18-16, the bare minimum number of affirmative votes need for passage.

How much will it cost? The Rocky tells you:

In the version approved today, the plan will raise $48 million more in property tax revenue next year.

But then the Rocky goes on to defend the reason for the measure:

Budget analysts predict that the state education fund will be insolvent by the 2011-12 school year. The additional property tax revenue from the measure passed today will reduce the amount that must come from the state fund.

What the Rocky DOES NOT tell you is what those same budget analysts peg as the long-term cost of the measure: $1.7 BILLION.

For some reason, the Rocky also fails to mention that the Democrats shoved this measure through the Senate without:

: the required public hearing in front of the Senate
: consideration for the fact that Referendum C monies are coming in to the state's coffers at a rate of $1 billion a year more than originally projected
: consideration of the fact that the state Attorney General ruled last week that this measure was required under TABOR to be put to a vote of the general public

The Rocky also managed to miss that Windels et al. managed to--with this one fell swoop--drain $3.5 million out of the capital construction budget for charter schools.

The Rocky did do one thing right: they posted a chart showing how property tax rates would jump/fall for homeowners in the various area school districts. So, every time a Democrat tries to tell you that they're looking out for the 'little guy', remind them that with this bill they raised the property taxes for a person in the following districts by the following amounts:
(based on median home price in Denver metro area )

Commerce City $15.04
Denver $32.75
Cherry Creek - $11.75 (that is, they pay less next year)
Jefferson Cty $14.82
Douglas Cty $26.05
Boulder Cty $13.34

Just look at that list a little closer: notice that the greatest increase will be in Denver, and the only county on that list (there are two others I did not calculate, and about 10 more that have increases) that has a decrease in tax payments is Cherry Creek.

Does that make sense to anybody?

But, then again, we are talking about a Democratic plan: making sense is purely optional.
Posted by: Michael / 5/01/2007 11:26:00 PM

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