From: tmayer@neit.cgd.ucar.edu (Tom Mayer)
Subject: Re: A followup to Amendment 1
Keywords: Taxes,Amendment1
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 22:32:02 GMT

In article <thomasd.38.724956455@tps.COM> thomasd@tps.COM (Thomas W. Day) writes:
>There seems to be a lot of threats flying from the "public sector" regarding 
>the punishment that will be dealt to taxpayers because of the sucess of 
>Amendment 1.  Apparently, because we had the gall to ask for control of our 
>money, they are ready to punish us the same way Californians were punished 
>for Prop 13.  There is a solution.  

	I don't know about this group called the "public sector" who are
	going around making threats.  I do know a number of employees in
	the public sector are concerned that implementation of Admendment 1
	will make working in government more cumbersome and make most 
	long term planning virtually impossible.


>
>The problem is that none of these government agencies are directly 
>reportable to anyone outside of those empires.  The solution is to make them 
>reportable directly to taxpayers.  The means is through an addition to the 
>tax forms.  Mr. Bush suggested a minimal approach to this with his tax form 
>check-off for the national debt.  I would propose to extend this check-off 
>to every government expense.  This proposal would be given teeth by forcing 
>all agencies to live within the budgets allowed by the voter's allowance.  
>

	Well the state agencies are responsible to the governor, and in
	Colorado which has a weak executive, to a great extent they must 
	also answer to the legislature.  What I think people are saying is
	that the do not trust representative government anymore.  Instead
	of entrusting decisions to the people they elected, the people 
	seem to be saying they want to make the decisions themselves.
	For better or worse the legislature and local city councils
	spend months studying budgets trying to decide how to allocate
	resources.  I wonder how long the average voter will study the
	needs of the various state and local agencies and departments
	 before voting.
	
	At the state level most of the budget increases have gone to three
	areas.
	1) Medicaid (which ate up 1/2 the state budget increase last year
	             and is mandated by the federal government)
	2) Prisons  (getting tough on crime is very expensive)
	3) Education (the funds left over from the first two went to education
		     although many wealthy districts did not see this since 
                     equalization laws mandate that the monies go to the 
                     poorer districts).
	One can argue with these priorities.  But given the fact that
	the first one is mandated (and driven by the spiraling cost of
	health care) and that the other two probably reflect the public
	mood of the state, I don't think one can say that the legislature
	is out of touch with the people.

	As far as taxes go in absolute terms Colorado is right about in
	the middle of all the states when it comes to the state and local
	tax burden.  Further if you look at the amount of taxes collected
	per $1000 of income we're about 34th in the country.  My question  
	would be where's the fire?  We could have the tax burden of 
 	Mississippi, but then again we could have the roads, schools,
	parks, and environmental protection of Mississippi.		
	   	

>Here's the basic proposal, then:
>1) Include the major categories of all stage agencies in the state income 
>and property tax forms.  
>2) Allow taxpayers to deterimine what portion of their collected 
>income and property taxes would go to each agency.  
>3) Require each agency to spend only according to the budget allowance 
>allowed by the taxes collected.
>


	Tom, I'm going to approach it from the perspective of a municipality
	since that is where my "expertise" is.  Say the voters want more
	police this year and less of the library.  That means we would have
	to go out and hirer more cops and buy more police cars this
	coming year and lay off a couple of librarians.  It takes about 
	6 months to hirer and train a police officer so you have a full
	years expenses for about 6 months of service.  Say the next year
	the people say hey we don't like the library being closed on weekends
	and the fact it may take 10 or 15 minutes to check out a book.  So
	we lay off the cops, leave the cop car idle (or sell it at a discount) 
	and go back and find some new library people.  Of course this would
	require us to spend money to hire and train the new library staff. 
	The one department that would need more money each year for sure
	is the personnel department.

	People complain that goverment is inefficient yet they seem to 
        set up situations that guarantee that this belief becomes a
	self fulfilling prophecy.
	


>There it is, fire away.

	Let me talk about 1 specific instance in Louisville where Admendment 1
	is causing us elected officials grief and will probably all the
	residents of Louisville money.  We were supposed to participate in
	a major water pipeline project to bring water down from Carter
	Lake.  In this case the pipeline is very expensive but the water
	we're gaining access to is very cheap.  This pipeline project was
	supposed to start Jan. 1 but because of Admendment 1 the project 
	has been delayed at least a year.  Why?  Because many of the
	municipalities involved will have to wait till next November to hold  
	votes to see if they can participate.  This delay means that we
	will probably have to spend a couple of million dollars finding
	an interim and much more expensive source of water till the status
	of the pipeline project can be ascertained.  That cost will be 
	born by all the ratepayers in Louisville.  Remember those elections
	for voter approval of higher spending limits under almost 
        all circumstances can only be held on Election day in November.

	Imagine if a private company had to adhere to a very strict and 
	arbitrary set of spending guidelines.  That the only way they
	could change these guidelines would be if they had a vote of the
	shareholders and that vote was required to occur at the annual
	shareholders meeting.  I think there would be a lot of very unhappy
	and frustrated CEOs.


				Tom  Mayer


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