Following their release last week of an "alternative State of the State address" via YouTube, legislative Republicans today launched the first installment of a new weekly series on the popular video-sharing site to advance GOP views on a range of legislative issues. The Capitol Update videos will offer quick takes that will be posted on YouTube and touted on ColoradoSenateNews.com.
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This week's debut features GOP Senate Whip Nancy Spence, of Centennial, urging the General Assembly not to cut the state's property tax homestead exemption for senior citizens. Spence tells viewers that the exemption, which can offer substantial property-tax savings to seniors who have lived in their current homes at least 10 years, "is one way Colorado recognizes the contributions of its many senior citizens over the years."
"Suspending or repealing that important allowance in state law would be an insult to the very Coloradans who have done so much for our state," Spence says in the video. "It also would put at risk a segment of our population that already is struggling to scrape by on fixed incomes in the midst of a recession"
Spence's comments come amid looming, potentially deep cuts to both the current year's and next year's state operating budgets, due to plummeting tax revenue from a deepening nationwide recession. Some $600 million in cuts are expected in this year's budget, which was passed by ruling Democrats and signed by Gov. Bill Ritter last spring over Republican objections that the document was based on unrealistically rosy forecasts. Starting with last September's third-quarterly gloomy forecast by legislative economists, it became clear the state would run out of money before the end of the current fiscal year on June 30 unless sweeping cuts were made.
The governor is expected this week to announce what promises to be the first round of proposed cuts to the budget in order to keep the state in the black.
Spence's message targeted talk of cutting the homestead exemption to make ends meet; the veteran Republcian lawmaker and many of her GOP colleagues say Colorado's seniors should not be made to pay for a lack of "fiscal discipline" by the General Assembly.