Pueblo Chieftain opinion page
BY JOSH PENRY
For more than 15 years, Colorado's state budget has been reined in by a sensible spending cap that limits annual general fund growth to 6 percent. Two other laws require the next several hundred million dollars in government revenue above that limit to flow toward funding critical road and bridge needs.
These policies not only have shored up our vital infrastructure, but they also have ensured that our state government doesn’t go on a spending spree. That is why Colorado has been spared the kind of binge-and-purge budget calamities that have slammed other states.
Like a number of states, New York and California have a long history of running up their budgets to unsustainable levels when the economy is humming, only to have to raise taxes or borrow to balance their budgets when the economy and tax receipts decline.
Their insatiable appetite for increased government spending and lack of common-sense caps on government expenditures have left both the Empire State and the Golden State swimming in red ink. And those states already have some of the highest tax rates in the country. Not surprisingly, New York faced a shortfall of some $15 billion this year. Cash-strapped California - which recently took the unprecedented step of sending taxpayers "I.O.U's" in place of tax-refund checks - was grappling with a gap of some $40 billion.
In light of such sobering lessons, you would think it a no-brainer to continue the Arveschoug-Bird limit, named for former Rep. Steve Arveschoug of Pueblo and Sen. Mike Bird of Colorado Springs.
Yet late last month, the Colorado Senate took up a bill proposing to repeal our landmark budgetary spending limits.
The authors of this budget-busting bill didn't stop there. They also proposed to cut the heart out of key transportation funding laws, allowing the Legislature to siphon off road and bridge money and use it for growing government and expanding social programs.
What's ironic about this new attack on spending limits in Colorado is that it is happening right when leaders in places like California are talking about adding caps for the first time to their own budgets.
What's more, the proposal in our Legislature to cut road funding and spend it on growing government comes just as Gov. Bill Ritter has signed into law the steepest fee hike in a generation on Colorado motorists - to fund road and bridge repairs.
Unfortunately, Colorado's roads and bridges will actually lose more through cuts under the pending proposal on the budget limit (Senate Bill 228) than they will gain in new revenue under the governor’s sweeping fee hike (SB108, already signed into law).
Next time you have to pay this car tax - or are stuck in a rush-hour traffic jam - remember this shell game.
That is all the more why the attempt to blow the state’s budget cap has met fierce resistance in the General Assembly. Though outnumbered, legislative Republicans fought hard against the proposal earlier this month in a debate that began on one day and stretched into the early hours of the next morning.
Alhough that effort came up short, with the majority party pushing the measure through, the fight isn’t over yet. It still faces a battle in the House of Representatives.
In the end, this bill may pass the General Assembly, and it very well could become law by the signature of Governor Ritter. His party, after all, holds the levers of power in Colorado.
Yet, there are lawmakers in his party who are as concerned as are most members of my own party about giving the General Assembly a license to pump up government payroll and programs, rather than investing in basic infrastructure like highways and college buildings. Already, there are some encouraging signs of bipartisan push-back, and I remain hopeful we can come together to head off this bad policy.
In a day and age when trillion-dollar spending bills and blank-check bailouts are becoming the norm at the federal level, it is all the more important that we set a standard for sound and sensible fiscal policy here in Colorado.
As it is, the nation’s taxpayers have been left holding the bag for Congress’ recklessness; let’s resolve in our own state Legislature not to compound the problem.
Sen. Josh Penry of Grand Junction is Republican leader in the Colorado Senate.