[Originally posted at Norcal Politics by Lane Schwark on October 23,2005]
The LA Times has an article today that should serve as a warning to anyone considering voting in favor of Prop 76. Entitled "Would State Budget Cap Pinch Like Colorado’s?", the article looks at how a similar cap in imposed in Colorado 13 years ago has "strangled" that state’s government. The Republican Governor and even the Chamber of Commerce want the cap lifted for five years so they can catch up.
The problem: Colorado’s spending controls appear to have worked too well. Now some of the most strident fiscal conservatives in Colorado — long viewed as a model for others considering such restraints — say the cap has strangled government. There is talk of closing community colleges, privatizing the university system, releasing inmates early.
Owens said he never saw it coming.
"I don’t think it was designed to cripple government," he said of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR, amendment his state’s voters approved. "This is an unintended consequence."